Day 84 Out of the wind

June 13, 2020. Sunset 8:32 PM (again).
San Francisco, CA.

Sunrise and Sunset were at the same times as yesterday- the rate of change in the daylight slowing down but still shifting through shorter increments of the day. I recorded from inside near an open window to get out of the wind and captured the quiet ticking of the clock along with the slower paced tolling of the bell. Calming.
Day 84 Sheltering in place from one end of the street to the other. – BH

Day 83 Lightness

June 12, 2020. Sunset 8:32 PM.
San Francisco, CA.

For the next week, until the Solstice on the 20th, we will squeeze out only 2 more minutes of daylight. Slowing way down as we approach the vertex of our elliptical route around the sun. I picture this moment as that point when you throw a ball straight up into the air- just before it reverses course and begins to fall back towards the Earth. A moment of weightlessness. Lightness.
Day 83 Sheltering in place from one end of the street to the other. – BH

Day 82 Ensemble reunion minus the bird

June 11, 2020. Sunset 8:31 PM.
San Francisco, CA.

Thank you Elisabeth and Richard for joining us this evening. I hope the neighbors have come to appreciate the Chinese gong and Gankogui bell by now.
Day 82 Sheltering in place from one end of the street to the other. -- BH

Day 81 Sun down wind up

June 10, 2020. Sunset 8:31 PM.
San Francisco, CA.

The sun came out just in time to go down as the wind came up. Otherwise, pretty quiet passing by.
Day 81 Sheltering in place from one end of the street to the other. --BH

Day 80

June 9, 2020.
Sunset 8:30 PM.

Day 79 Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth

June 8, 2020. Sunset 8:30 PM.
San Francisco, CA.
FYI Sunrise is at 5:47 AM every day for 2 weeks--- The light is stable for a moment.

Mardi came by this evening to read from Shakespeare’s Richard II:
No Fear Act 3 Scene 2 Page 6.

No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
145 Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,
Let’s choose executors and talk of wills:
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
150 Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke’s,
And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
155 For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison’d by their wives: some sleeping kill’d;
160 All murder’d: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
165 To monarchize, be fear’d and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour’d thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
170 Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
175 I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?

Day 79 Sheltering in place. --BH

At the same moment across the Bay…

June 8, 2020. Sunset 8:30 PM.
Vallejo, CA.

Elisabeth Beaird and Richard Marriott were on Mare Island. “We didn’t quite see the flash because there was a little hill in the way, but it’s gorgeous out here”.

Day 78

June 7, 2020. Sunset 8:29 PM (again).
San Francisco, CA.

Today is the 159th day of the year. We have been sheltering in place for ½ the year so far. (California began on March 17th)
Day 78 - shelter in place. -- BH