Day 175

September 12, 2020. Sunset 7:21 PM. San Francisco, CA.

The air is white with fog and smoke— better looking but still not so good to breathe.
Day 175 sheltering in place

dining like it 2019

September 12, 2020. Sunset 7:08 PM. Brooklyn, NY.

Clusters of sidewalk dining at sunset. Looks pretty- scary.

Raining Ashes

September 11, 2020. Sunset. 7:22 PM. San Francisco, CA.

Raining ashes on 9/11. Remembering. Still mourning.
Day 174 Sheltering in place.

September 11 Sunset

September 11, 2020. Sunset 7:10 PM. Brooklyn, NY.

Arrived. Just parked the truck. Walking home- grabbing my mask and bell just in time.

Day 173

September 10, 2020. Sunset 7:24 PM. San Francisco, CA.

Our neighbor Matt – stalwart company in spite of the stay indoors warning for air quality.
Day 173 Sheltering in place.

bugs with our bells

September 10, 2020. Sunset 7:43 PM. Gates Mills, OH

Our last evening together, Lucy and I walked out to the meadow to ring with the insects. We sampled two more bells from her grandmother's collection.

Day 172 the color of air

September 9, 2020. Sunset 7:25 PM. San Francisco, CA.

The air this evening at least looked like it might belong on the planet Earth and not Mars as it did earlier in the day. However, it’s such a super white eerie light that I’ve never seen before—It seems to be this combination of the super bright LED streetlights overtaking what would be the fading ambient daylight. Those dark shadows. And the masks tell the rest of the unbreathable air quality story. No end in sight.
Day 172 Sheltering in place.

Turkeys Gone Home

September 9, 2020. Sunset 7:44. Gates Mills, OH.

This is where the 7 turkeys hang out during the day. All clear in the evening, making way for the crickets’ concert. These are the same bells we rang last night.

Day 171 Smoke

September 8, 2020. Sunset 7:27 PM. San Francisco, CA.

Smoke. Masks are serving double duty here these days.
Day 171 Sheltering in place.

“whoever touches me hears my voice”

September 8, 2020. Sunset 7:45 PM Gates Mills, OH.

Final stop before the last leg to New York. Visiting with my friend Lucy who lives near fields and woods filled with the voices of crickets and grasshoppers and has turkeys wandering around in her flower garden. Her grandmother’s middle name was bell and (coincidentally?) she ended up collecting many, many bells. We rang two of them this evening — one was a replica of a St. Mark’s monastery bell inscribed in Latin - “whoever touches me hears my voice”.
Lucy’s mother used it to call Lucy and her siblings into dinner when they were children.

Day 170

September 7, 2020. Sunset 7:28 PM.

Labor Day ---Our neighbor Matt- a day off from Zoom and school- v e r y relaxed… Day 170 Sheltering in place.

Portage Anyone?

September 7, 2020. Sunset 7:11 PM. Port of Indiana/Portage, IND

After driving East for miles and miles with the sun shooting straight into the rear-view mirror and nothing else to do—I’ve gotten pretty good at estimating how much further I can drive before the sun hits the horizon. On cloudy days, it’s harder to tell—the light just starts to fade, and things become greyer. Such as this evening-- I pulled off the freeway and noticed this sign which turns out to point the way to one of 3 major Ports of Indiana. This one is for The Port of Indiana-Burns Harbor, where there is a major power plant.

Day 169 introducing-- the bell

September 6, 2020. Sunset 7:30 PM. San Francisco, CA.

“How’s it going?
Very hot and smokey here.
Bernie, Mardi and Matt came".
Day 169 Sheltering in place

4-armed bell ringer

September 6, 2020. Sunset 7:28 PM. Ironwood, MI.

Kathy’s son, Sam took this photo of the 4-armed bellringer returning from ringing down the sun over the lake. We all met in the far north of Minnesota 20 years ago when Kathy and her young (at that time) children participated in a traveling vaudeville project that I was doing there. We have been friends ever since, though have not seen each other once since then. Nobody wants to wait another 20 years to do this again. I'll miss you guys in the meantime.