A visit to Duke Farms

Living overseas has its challenges, especially when it comes to visiting New York once a year. I usually make the trip back to my birth country and hometown during the summer months, and there are usually a myriad of places to go and people to see. Since I have limited time in New York, I have to plan how to use that time well. Every moment counts and I don’t want to spend my precious time doing things that are meaningless or that don’t give me joy. So I am together with the people who are dear to me, and I frequent those places that make me happy or that have the potential of doing so. In that way, I can include places I’ve never visited but want to visit in that category. Most of them are in New York State, but some of them are not. This year, on a hot sunny August day, I had the privilege of visiting Duke Farms in Hillsborough New Jersey together with my good friends Stef and John (married thirty-five years this year) who live in Hillsborough. We have talked about visiting Duke Farms together for a few years now; they’ve been there many times. Oddly enough, I lived near that area of New Jersey for four years before I moved to Oslo, but never visited Duke Farms before now. This year we managed a visit, and it was well-worth it, as the following photos will document. I include two links to Duke Farms here so that you can read more about this wonderful place: http://www.dukefarms.org and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Farms

near entrance to Duke Farms

sycamore allée--Duke Farms

unsure what kind of bird this is

notice the frog sitting on the rock

algae-covered pond in background

the foundation for a mansion that JB Duke never built

dead tree in algae-covered lake

the Great Falls empty into Vista Lake (not much flowing water at the time this photo was taken)

Pride before a Fall

In the wake of your unbridled hubris

Lie the remains of those who sought to serve you

Misguided attempts to appease

The ever-growing monster that you are

When you have sucked dry the bones

Of those about you, what have you left

Where do you begin anew

What is next on your agenda of annihilation

Did you not seek the obliteration of your fellows

To enhance your own self view, pride-gorged

Did you not speak to them with a forked tongue

And wonder why they cursed you silently

How many have sat out into the universe

A curse upon you, a pox on everything you hold dear

Why do you deserve better than those around you

That you ate up and spit out like carrion

You are a monster with a pretty face

That now shows the ravages of time and defeat

You too will suffer scorn at the hands of those

Who come after you

One can only hope

That you suffer as you have made others suffer

That you feel the slings and arrows

Of repudiation and ill will, that you so richly deserve

copyright 2014

Paula M. De Angelis

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A new poem, that will be part of a soon-to-be-published new collection. 

Realizations

When you’re on vacation, you have a real chance to take a good long look at your life and the world around you, to assess the strengths and weaknesses of choices you’ve made, and the advantages and disadvantages of living and working in a certain way. My recent vacation in New York State made me realize that I have reached a point in my life where I prefer small to large—small towns, small companies, and small groups of people I care about. The preference for small towns instead of big cities will surprise some people who know me, I’m sure. The largeness of city life no longer appeals to me the way it did when I was starting out in my career; city life energized me then, and that is perhaps as it should be. When you’re starting out, ‘the world is your oyster’, as the saying goes. I don’t know the origin of that quote, but it most likely has to do with opening an oyster and finding a pearl inside, or opening many oysters in the search for pearls. In any case, the world of a large city is amazing and attractive for its energy and excitement. New York City is a perfect example; at one time in my life I worked there and loved that time in my life. But I would not want to have that work experience again. I grew up in a small town--Tarrytown, and every time I return to it on my annual trips, I realize how lovely it is. Part of that has to do with its smallness; it is manageable and familiar to me, even though it is no longer the same town in which I grew up. I don’t require that at all. Nothing stays the same, so it would be a waste of time and energy to try to keep things from changing. In fact, I like the changes that my hometown has made; I like what it has become. It is a lovelier town, and I feel comfortable there, with the people, the atmosphere and the landscapes. As one of my friends said, it is a mixture of people from all walks of life. I like that—a microcosm of the world. In the same way, I have come to appreciate small companies and ventures. If I could, I would work for a small company rather than for a huge bureaucratic organization where you are just an employee number at best. That’s not to say that large companies don’t function well or that they don’t treat employees well, they can and they often do, but the work experience is impersonal and it’s tough to find people who care enough about your career for it to really make an intellectual and emotional difference in your life. That’s been my experience, in any case. Bigger is not better, for many reasons that I won’t go into here.

I alternate between wanting to take new risks/start on new adventures (residual impulses from my past that continue to exert a small pull on me), and wanting to play it safer in order to focus on the people and activities that matter most to me. I am past the point where I need to take risks to prove anything as far as my career is concerned. I’ve achieved the personal career goals I aimed for and I now have other ideas about how I want to use my time, e.g. writing, as I’ve often talked about in this blog. I am already well-underway in that venture; I am currently writing two books, one a new poetry collection, the other a book about the town where I grew up. Writing feels right, even though it feels scary at times to feel that way. Am I really writer-material? Can I do it full-time instead of in my free time? I don’t do it full-time as a way of making a living, at least not now; it would not pay the bills. And that’s what’s needed right now—a job that pays the bills. I work to live, rather than live to work as I did when I was younger. That feels right too. If I don’t have to worry about the bills, I am free to write. That’s how I look at it. And if I focus small, i.e., don’t worry about the big literary world out there, full of would-be authors and budding writers, I’m fine. I can write in peace and believe in what I’m writing, without worrying about how it will be received generally. What drives me now is the desire to share my thoughts and feelings that make up the stories, poems, and novels that I am creating. The desire to create is what satisfies me now, followed by the desire to share what I’ve created. Quite a new thing for me. 

Mostly, I’m happy with my life at present. I am letting go of older ways of thinking and doing things, and that feels right. I’m preparing for new life phases, and am grateful for the time to think about those phases and to prepare for them. Not everyone gets that chance, for different reasons. I am grateful for the peace and harmony that vacation has imparted to me. I am also grateful for all those who are dear to me, whom I care about and who care about me. Not everyone has those kinds of people in their life, for different reasons. I’ve realized too that letting go leads to peace and to the understanding that living life is not about controlling it or its outcome. It’s about living life and being present in your life.

A summer poem by Mary Oliver

I love this poem........

The Summer Day 

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

A summer poem by Robert Louis Stevenson

Summer Sun 

Great is the sun, and wide he goes 

Through empty heaven with repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.

Though closer still the blinds we pull
To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.

The dusty attic spider-clad
He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;
And through the broken edge of tiles
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.

Meantime his golden face around
He bares to all the garden ground,
And sheds a warm and glittering look
Among the ivy's inmost nook.

Above the hills, along the blue,
Round the bright air with footing true,
To please the child, to paint the rose,
The gardener of the World, he goes.