{"id":896,"date":"2023-12-18T20:17:52","date_gmt":"2023-12-19T01:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/?p=896"},"modified":"2023-12-18T20:17:52","modified_gmt":"2023-12-19T01:17:52","slug":"18-decembrance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/2023\/12\/18\/18-decembrance\/","title":{"rendered":"#18 decembrance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There was an engaging article in The Washington Post about W. S. Merwin and his Hawaiian property. He bought barren land in the 70s and planted palm trees and other natives to restore the local habitat. Our land here in Virginia has similarly been transformed. Once a treeless pasture it is now a sheltering wooded hillside. Yesterday, between intermittent rain squalls we stepped through the leaves with our Japanese visitors pointing out trees, fruits, and feathers. Today, wishing I had an indexing system, I sifted through objects and notes about specific pots from the 90s to summarize the outlines of new, future projects. It was a bit like looking at past footprints for future inspiration. Much of the touch is stored in my mind and the notes serve as clues to bring it all back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"954\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/18-decmbrance-23-954x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-897\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/18-decmbrance-23-954x1024.jpg 954w, https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/18-decmbrance-23-280x300.jpg 280w, https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/18-decmbrance-23-768x824.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/18-decmbrance-23-1431x1536.jpg 1431w, https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/18-decmbrance-23-1200x1288.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/18-decmbrance-23.jpg 1491w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 954px) 100vw, 954px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As if I had a system<br>I shuffle among the lies<br>Turning them over, if only<br>I could be sure what I\u2019d lost.<br>I uncover my footprints, I<br>Poke them till the eyes open.<br>They don\u2019t recall what it looked like.<br>When was I using it last?<br>Was it like a ring or a light<br>Or the autumn pond<br>Which chokes and glitters but<br>Grows colder?<br>It could be all in the mind. \u00a0Anyway<br>Nothing seems to bring it back to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8211;W. S. Merwin, excerpt from <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poems\/52501\/the-nails\">The Nails<\/a><\/em>, \u00a9 1993 by W.S. Merwin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There was an engaging article in The Washington Post about W. S. Merwin and his Hawaiian property. He bought barren land in the 70s and planted palm trees and other natives to restore the local habitat. Our land here in Virginia has similarly been transformed. Once a treeless pasture it is now a sheltering wooded [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rough-ideas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=896"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":898,"href":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896\/revisions\/898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catherinewhite.com\/roughideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}