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Phoebe Sinclair Writes

Phoebe Sinclair Writes

Tag Archives: trees

Muddy River Beauty

12 Thursday May 2016

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Green Life

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olmsted, spring, trees

It’s not just that spring has arrived in Boston . . .

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It’s that it’s arrived for my favorite tree along the Muddy River Path.

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Robins pull worms, Canada Geese graze their fuzzy goslings in the young grass, but my eyes are for this sparsely flowered specimen of spindly grace.

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A Song, A Poem, A Post

03 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Green Life, Writing Life

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arnold-arboretum, jamaica-plain, trees, writing

Eight straight years of intensive writing instruction in high school and college make me shy of writing exercises. I’ve been there, wrote that.

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However, on the occasion a member of my writer’s group suggests an exercise, I put on my big girl pants and I make good.

Below is a dot of fiction, based on a song (Deb Talan’s “The Gladdest Things“), which follows a poem (Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Afternoon on a Hill“). Fast on the heels, and interspersed, I’ve included photos of the location I had in mind while working on the exercise. Turns out, this a piece I quite like, so thank you Megan.

For a Song, for a Poem
He touched my hand. It wasn’t to make a statement. The touch felt light, as though he was attempting to tell me, without disrupting the moment with the sound of his voice: hey, this is where we’ve been.

On the hill we biked up, we sat not on the boulders placed for lounging, sharp edges that jabbed into your hip. Instead on the grass, trodden and pokey with sticks and branches torn down by the same late summer winds that kept the trees on the hill growing only-so-tall.

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In the far distance, our city. In the near distance, hazy and harder to make out, our neighborhood. Houses that fit well in either city or town; where we grew up being some sweet in-between.

In less than two weeks, the two of us would leave. No longer come to this spot where tussling dogs forced their owners to interact. The crab apples dropping, and rotting, without us. Each chipmunk feeling that much safer with two fewer humans.

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I to my West Coast college, and my friend to the Navy. We laughed about his new white suit. How hot he was going to be when he came to shore on the occasion like a sea-mammal up for air. The girls passing by who would turn their heads without realizing they’d looked. Some boys, too.

We used up our laughs, and smiles. Just tears left that neither of us felt brave enough to spend, so we stood, dusted our butts, and started down.

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Snapshots From My November Commute

25 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Bike Life

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bike-commuting, cambridge, jamaica-plain, trees

Late November is one of my favorite times to bike commute.

Long shadows across Olmstead Path

There’s something about starting out crisp; covered from head to toe in wool and sporty synthetics. Just one layer to start, before December and January demand more.

Bike & rider silhouette

Standing in the acorns

My favorite little urban woods between Jamaica Plain and Cambridge are similarly dressed for cool, but not yet snow or ice. Muddy River park

Reflection on underside of stone bridge Bright yellow tree in Brookline

And fellow commuters, they’re still out there. Not yet chased to public transit.

Cyclist on Hubway bike

Rocking that Hubway like a pro

The Pines, Arnold Arboretum

19 Thursday Nov 2015

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Boston Moments, Green Life

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jamaica-plain, trees

I’ve long loved trees.

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When I was a kid, I can remember trying to decide which I preferred: deciduous or conifer.

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Well, deciduous are great because they sprout tiny leaves that grow into bigger leaves, change from green to gold or red or brown, and then fall to regrow in just a few (not that short) months.

But conifer. Conifer remain. Sun. Rain. Sleet. Wind. They are Always. Smell so good against a bright, clean expanse of snow. And pinecones! Who doesn’t love pinecones?

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Aside from some weird seemingly in-betweens (looking at you, juniper; what ARE you, yew?) for which I couldn’t always identify the correct team (scientists could tell you, I bet, should you distract ’em long enough from the argument about camels), I decided deciduous and conifer had a pretty good competition going on. Satisfying in that winless way.

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All these years later, I haven’t truly picked a side. Though I have favorites, like a pin oak at the edge of a church parking lot near where I live, and the Arboretum pines.

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They take twenty minutes to a half hour to reach, walking, but worth it! The pines, and firs, and weird in-betweens can be found just over Bussey Hill. A collection of big, stout, expansive, narrow, prickly, soft, smooth and otherwise not-yet-discovered (by me). When I have the spare hour, I wander to see what’s new, to smell sap and tar and soil. To discover what I’d forgotten since my previous visit.

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Whole Heart World’s End

28 Wednesday Oct 2015

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Green Life, Travelin'

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film-camera, food-n-cookin, hikes, the-trustees, trees

Whole heart world’s end. (I just wanted to say that.)

Looking through wooden slats

A few years back, we learned of a park called World’s End located in Hingham, south of Boston. Of course we had to go.

Bridge to World's End

Bench to nowhere

Of course I had to bring my camera. The good one. Film.

Dark branch, light tree

Twigs before beach

Driftwood

Seaweed fuzzy on rock

David on rock, World's End

Of course we couldn’t resist the tiny shells. Or the ‘lil kids, who also weren’t resisting tiny shells.

David holds up shell

Kids at World's End

And, headed home after an afternoon of exploring, of course we wouldn’t resist fried seafood, despite our thirty-year-old digestion. Who would?

Fish shack fried clams

That Craggy Apple Tree: A Study

02 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Green Life

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Tags

spring, trees

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Remember my friend the apple tree along the Olmstead Path and Jamaicaway in JP/Brookline? We had a spring visit. IMG_0255

It was just looking so handsome that day, I had to stop by and study bark and branch and flower.

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And then I snapped a sweet extra . . .

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Bicyclist passes the apple treet

Over the River, Through the Woods

30 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Green Life, Learnin'

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

hikes, trees, water-ways

I’m the kind of person, a city bus pauses in front of me and snaps opens the door, I want to get on. Even if my course for the day is set, and especially if the bus is one I’ve never taken. Where’s that bus headed?

Shipyard Way sign

Around a corner, over the bend, I’m curious to follow the trails other animals (humans included) set. Marked and annotated, paved, tread-bare. Unfortunately, a fall season stuffed with work, personal, and social responsibilities and engagements offered few opportunities to engage in little explorations.

Trees by the Mystic River

This December, I fell sick enough to put a temporary halt to my ordinary dashing about. Days of sleeping and alternating between watching old TV favorites on Youtube and feeling monumentally bored finally gave way to something new.

Mystic River Route sign

We followed the paved Mystic River Route trail along a fast roadway in Medford, discovering, at dusk, an ornate green, metal bridge leading to an old New England-style shopping district, docks on the river, and a delicate amphitheater dedicated to human rights activist and writer Lydia Maria Child.

Over the green bridge

Mystic River at dusk

Over the river poem by Lydia Maria Child

I’d completely misremembered this poem. Thought it was “through the woods” and “grandmother’s house”!

Hiking Madame Sherri Forest

01 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Green Life

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

jamaica-plain, spring, trees

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You know how they say books open doors to new worlds? It’s true.

Walking the ruins

Two different socks - sitting on top of the ruins

My partner and I frequent our local branch of the Boston Public Library, twice having borrowed a copy of The New Hiking the Monadnock Region: 44 Nature Walks and Day-Hikes in the Heart of New England and renewed it generously. Long title, many trails at various levels of difficulty.

David through the arch

Consulting the gude to hikes
Following our guide (what? you don’t travel out-of-state with library books?), we visited the stone ruins of a mansion built in the early 1920s by an eccentric theater costume designer, several beaver lodges (sadly, none of the occupants sighted) and many chewed trees that hadn’t toppled in the desired direction, and delicate amphibians decked out in bright orange or careful, mottled brown.

Beaver lodge

Orange amphibian

Mottled leaf floats on the water

Our hike was easy-level and included many reaches into the giant-bag-o-trailmix, so I didn’t work up the level of appetite I might have. Still, I was happy to chow at Putney Diner, a spot famous for its homestyle pies.

Finally, we stopped by Brattleboro, where I introduced David to the one area of Vermont I know fairly well, having visited with my mother and on numerous occasions with friends.

Welcome sign in pocket park

Gardens on the Main Street

Brattleboro Food Co-op outdoor eating area

Local Maple, Moosehill

05 Friday Apr 2013

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Green Life, Learnin'

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events, food-n-cookin, trees, winter

I was encouraged by the number of people who showed up to Saturday’s sold-out Maple Sugaring Festival at Mass Audubon’s Moose Hill in Sharon, MA. Friends, families, and a few couples like us.

Two tours pass one another

Kids check out the wooden trough

Snow on the group, sap rising, and the sugar house was steaming maple smoke.

Catching sap in metal buckets

Yoke for young folks to carry sap

Yoke and metal pail

Displaying the color of maple syrup

Due to climate change and invasive pests, folks claim these woods are endangered. Spying the maples at Natick Community Farm and Moose Hill has been bittersweet. As a kid, having never seen them, I’d envisioned sugar maples as stately and smooth. I’ve since learned they’re more tall and gnarly, holding in their veins a thin, silent treasure.

Not a sugar maple

Not a sugar maple

Stacked tree trunks

{This Moment} Early Signs of Spring

29 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Boston Moments

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jamaica-plain, spring, this-moment, trees

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-With Soulemama–

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