The Daily Respite: Recent Episodes
Clara Parkes
Occasional audio files intended to bring you respite, grounding, and relaxation as part of The Daily Respite newsletter.
dailyrespite.substack.com
Good morning!
It’s Sunday, and it’s just begun to snow. Not a delicate powdery parmesan kind of snow but a billowy popcorn one that makes plop sounds when it hits the water.
Before we head back up to the house for hot chocolate, let’s stand here for a minute. I’ve spotted a loon that is very eager to show us how long it can hold its breath under water.
“It snowed last year too: I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea.”
― Dylan Thomas
Onwards we go,
Clara
p.s.—You can also watch today’s video via this link.
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Good morning!
It’s Sunday. We’ve bundled up and time-traveled back to a softer snowy day by the water. There’s a bit of a wind, but the air smells of woodsmoke and salt water. We’re bundled up and ready for whatever the day may bring.
“There is peace even in the storm.”
—Vincent van Gogh
Onwards,
Clara
p.s.—You can also watch today’s video via this link.
Get full access to The Daily Respite at dailyrespite.substack.com/subscribe
Good morning!
It’s Sunday, and it’s Christmas Eve. Instead of our usual stroll to the ocean, how about a woodland adventure?
We’ve stepped off the dirt road and tiptoed across grass until we spotted a small opening between two ancient cedars tottering at the edge of the woods.
Let’s see what happens if we walk through that opening and see where it leads. Is that water I hear in the distance?
“If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything.”
—Alan Watts
Onwards,
Clara
p.s.—You can also watch today’s video via this link, should the above player cause any troubles.
Get full access to The Daily Respite at dailyrespite.substack.com/subscribe
Good morning!
It’s a glorious Sunday. For today’s nature Respite, let’s not stand still.
We’re headed down the old dirt road that leads to the ocean. We’ve made our way through the blueberry field and are now in the woods. Down one small slope we’ve gone, and then past another, stopping just short of the Hill That Requires a Commitment.
Here we pause and ponder. Do we have that commitment? Or should we return home for pancakes?
I vote pancakes.
“It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.”
—Abraham Lincoln
Onwards,
Clara
p.s.—Should the above video player give you any troubles, you can also watch today’s video via this link.
Get full access to The Daily Respite at dailyrespite.substack.com/subscribe
Good morning!
It’s Sunday, and the sun is setting before 4pm now—so don your coat, lace up those walking shoes, and meet me at the door.
There’s a brisk wind blowing from the southeast, so I’m taking us to a sheltered cove where we can watch the waves in peace.
“It is quiet and peaceful here, the air is good, there are numerous gardens, and in them nightingales sing and spies lurk under the bushes.”
—Maxim Gorky
Looks like we’ve been spotted!
See you tomorrow,
Clara
p.s.—You can also spy on the waves using this link, if the above video player gives you troubles.
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Good morning!
It’s Thursday, and it’s the last day of August. Stand with me at the edge of the field, and let’s listen to the sounds together. (Just tap the right-pointing triangle up top and make sure your volume is turned up.)
“The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last forever.”
—E.B. White
E.B. White’s crickets lived about 12 miles from here. Could we be listening to their great great great grand-cousins?
Onwards,
Clara
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Good morning!
It’s Thursday. Yesterday morning I headed outside to feed the birds, as I always do—although who am I kidding, most of the seed gets stuffed under the house by the squirrels. Anyway, I’d taken only a few steps when I heard a sound that stopped me in my tracks. A sound as seasonally symbolic as the first spring peepers, but far more spine-tinglingly magical at its core. I heard my first hermit thrush of the year. Usually it sings alone, but yesterday it had a whole bird chorus keeping it company. (Tap the right-pointing triangle up top to listen.)
Onwards,
Clara
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Good morning!
It’s Saturday, and I invite you to stand on the porch with me and listen to the most glorious, joyful sound in Maine at the moment. It is the sound of the spring peepers, or pseudacris crucifer, which have finally come back to life after their long winter freeze.
What are these “peepers” exactly? They are frogs. Very musical frogs. Their song begins at dusk and sounds rather like sleigh bells from deep in the woods. Its the male peepers singing their hearts out in the hopes of finding true love. For several weeks, this will be our evening soundtrack. You’ll also hear some deeper clucks and blurps of other frogs that can’t resist joining in the chorus.
“They heard and felt the breath of spring, and they stirred with new life and hope. There was a good, new smell in the air, a smell of earth waking after its long sleep.”
—E. B. White, The Trumpet of the Swan
Onwards,
Clara
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Good morning!
It’s Thursday, and another sign of spring is the return of the seasonal help wanted ads. They’re always the same: Hotels need housecleaners, restaurants need servers and kitchen staff. Summer can’t begin without them.
Everyone feels the urgency. Just yesterday, a pair of Barred Owls stationed themselves deep in the woods and called, “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?” back and forth to each other. Listen now.
“It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.”
—Eugene Ionesco
Fair enough.
Onwards,
Clara
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Good morning!
It’s Monday. There’s a church just a few blocks away from where we’ve been staying. It’s nothing grand by French standards, though stunning by anyone else’s, I’m sure.
I’ve never been inside, but I have heard the bell. It’s beautiful, with a deep and sonorous resonance that you feel in your chest. They ring this bell every night before the service. Not once, but twice, but for several minutes.
Last night I went out and recorded it so that we could listen together as we embark upon this new week.
“The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers.”
—Matsuo Basho
Onwards,
Clara
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Good morning!
It’s Monday, and a fresh new week sits before us. To set our course, I’m sharing an audio recording of what passed through our street yesterday. With no warning, the most joyful music began to play. I rushed to the balcony in time to see a man in hat and suspenders pushing a small barrel organ down the middle of the street. He had a friend (also in hat and suspenders) collecting the coins and bills that people were tossing down to them.
When they reached the end of the street, the door to the bistro on the corner opened and the manager waved them over. I assumed he was telling them to get lost, but no. He was inviting them inside. Soon I could hear strains of “La Vie en Rose” with voices singing along and cheering at the end.
“The world is its own magic.”
—Shunryu Suzuki
Onwards,
Clara
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Good morning!
It’s Thursday. After all that, I spotted a bee on the cosmos yesterday. Harmony having been restored in the garden, I decided to walk down to the ocean and see how it was doing.
Partway down the wooded path, the crickets stopped me and asked if I could convey a message to you. They were very insistent about it, as you’ll hear. I don’t speak cricket, so I don’t know what they’re saying—but I trust it’s important. Tap the sideways triangle up top to give it a listen. Oh, the bell buoy also says hi.
September’s BaccalaureateA combination isOf Crickets — Crows — and RetrospectsAnd a dissembling BreezeThat hints without assuming —An Innuendo searThat makes the Heart put up its FunAnd turn Philosopher.
Emily Dickinson
Any guess what they’re saying?
Onwards,
Clara
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Good morning!
Today is Saturday. Before you engage in whatever jangle or clang the day may try to bring, I offer you one minute of my birds, field, and bell buoy for grounding. Yes, even the crows got in a few words.
“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
― Howard Zinn
Onwards,
Clara
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Good morning!
Today is Wednesday. Now that the bears are awake, I go outside every evening to bring in the bird feeders. Sometimes everyone is already in bed and the world is silent. But last night they were still up and chattering away. Shall we stand outside and eavesdrop on their conversations for a minute? (Just click the sideways-pointing arrow up top and turn up your volume.)
"Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark."
- Rabindranath Tagore
Sing on,
Clara
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Good morning!
Today is Saturday. Outside, everything is still encased in snow. But yesterday I opened the window and heard the most wonderful sound. I had to share it with you. Tap on that sideways triangle up top, turn up your volume, close your eyes, and take a listen.
“There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of the birds, the ebb and flow of the tides, the folded bud ready for the spring. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter.”
― Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder
Indeed, we continue ever onwards,
Clara
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Good morning!
It’s Sunday. It’s been a dry month here in Maine. But today a light rain is falling, and the birds and the plants are happy. Turn up the volume, close your eyes, and sit with me on the porch for a minute.
“Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.”
—John Ruskin
Onwards we go,
Clara
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Good morning!
It’s Friday, and the spring peepers have returned! I’ve recorded their evening symphony for you. Just tap the right-pointing triangle up top for a listen.
“After that hard winter, one could not get enough of the nimble air. Every morning I wakened with a fresh consciousness that winter was over. There were none of the signs of spring for which I used to watch in Virginia, no budding woods or blooming gardens. There was only—spring itself; the throb of it, the light restlessness, the vital essence of it everywhere: in the sky, in the swift clouds, in the pale sunshine, and in the warm, high wind—rising suddenly, sinking suddenly, impulsive and playful like a big puppy that pawed you and then lay down to be petted. If I had been tossed down blindfold on that red prairie, I should have known that it was spring.”
― Willa Cather, My Ántonia
Subscribers, shall we gather at 2pm Eastern?
Onwards,
Clara
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Good morning!
It’s Monday, and it’s the first day of February. Since much of the northeastern United States is bracing for a nor’easter that’ll dump at least a foot of snow, I thought we’d practice some escapism this morning.
The right-pointing arrow at the top of this email will play you an audio recording of Maine in the height of August, complete with a symphony of crickets, a passing bee, and the faint sound of the bell buoy off in the bay. I recorded this in the very spot where today’s photo was taken. Close your eyes and you’ll be there.
“Today is the first of February, snowy, brilliant, but dripping with the sound of spring wherever the sun lies warm, and calling with the heart of spring yonder where the crows are assembling. There is spring in the talk of the chickadees outside my window, and in the cheerful bluster of a red squirrel in the hickory.”
― Dallas Lore Sharp
That’ll do for today.
Stay warm, and be sure to keep a shovel by the back door,
Clara
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Good morning!
It’s Thursday, and it’s first day of October. This calls for a midweek nature break.
Today we’re sitting at the edge of a dock on Squam Lake in Holderness, New Hampshire.
I have an extra treat for you: After dark, the loons perform their night chorus. When I was there, I couldn’t go to sleep without recording some of it. Tap that little right-pointing triangle at the top of this email if you’d like to listen to 30 seconds of their serenade.
“I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than what I fear. And at the end of my prayers, they teach me how to listen.”
― Terry Tempest Williams
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Clara
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Good morning!
It’s Monday, and we’re trying something different today: audio.
I’m out on the porch. After a rainy night, the fog over the pond is lifting and a hermit thrush is singing its heart out. Won’t you fill up your mug, tap that “play” arrow up above, and join me out on the porch?
Into this new week we go,
Clara
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