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Do you see the water and watch it flow and float an empty shell?
I just found out that my all-time favorite of the Smithsonian's exhibits, "Life in the Ancient Seas," ceased to exist in 2013. The fossil halls are being completely remodeled. It looks like a considerable, thoughtful undertaking. It is probably even scientifically necessary. At the moment I'm too stunned to appreciate it. I loved the fossil skeletons swimming before the full-scale murals of which they were the stony echoes, the shadowiness of its corridors and the sea-lighting, the petrified corals and the shells. The diorama of the Paleozoic reef. I wanted to swim in those waters, all the different millions of years of them. Ammonites, mosasaurs, armored fishes, euryptids, dugongs and diving birds and kelp swaying in the bubble-blue light. In 2005, I rejoiced that it still existed. I wish I had known in time to say goodbye.
[edit] Ely Kish, the painter of the murals, died last year. She gave me a wonderful dream of the sea's deep time. I would have preferred not to learn both of these facts within the same half-hour.
[edit] Ely Kish, the painter of the murals, died last year. She gave me a wonderful dream of the sea's deep time. I would have preferred not to learn both of these facts within the same half-hour.
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I feel for you.
Yesterday I learned that Jean Ritchie had died. Her singing was with me through childhood right up to now... I know we are all mortal, but.
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Nine
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And nothing puts it in perspective like reading about major extinction events.
(No, but it's true: you grieve anyway.)
Yesterday I learned that Jean Ritchie had died.
I didn't know. Thank you for telling me. Her memory for a blessing.