Category: rough ideas

Every December the long nights hit me hard. I know they are coming and I think I am prepared, but it still surprises me how easy it is to let my fear of the dark in the door. The process of writing and photographing in order to pay attention to my surrounding landscape is my way of fighting through this season. I make sure I take a walk before sunset. I notice the dawn colors. Through this process it’s as if I am sitting down with my demons and having a chat. Yesterday, when I got to the studio it was in the 40’s indoors. I wore layers including a lightweight down jacket under my sweat shirt, overalls, and a hat. I made a fire in the wood stove and stoked it until it was a balmy 62 degrees.

I worked all day prepping to glaze, then mixing glaze, and finally glazing pots. I took a break for dinner and made a peanut sauce rice noodle salad with tofu. Then I went back to work for another hour before my hands were too sore from holding pots in odd positions and too dry from washing off glaze. I returned to the house to write, take a bath, and sleep. I have to reinstate the habit of turning on the outdoor lights early so I can walk the otherwise dark return path between the house and studio. I relearn the path in the dark– listening to the rustle of leaves and the crunch of gravel. I try to find new names for the qualities of dark. I nurse the bruises on my shins when I walk into things in the shadowy way. I have not burned my fingers on the wood stove yet and I am enjoying its heat.
 

“Don’t fight your demons. Your demons are here to teach you lessons. Sit down with your demons and have a drink and a chat and learn their names and talk about the burns on their fingers and scratches on their ankles. Some of them are very nice.”

–Charles Bukowski (no citation available)

Here is the first of 21 images leading up to the winter solstice 2024; a small vase with the last of the marigolds before December’s low temperatures pulled into town.

“Artists are people driven by the tension between the desire to communicate and the desire to hide.”
―Donald Woods Winnicott
 
I sat down to write about the equinox. Having been traveling in Santa Fe I am a week late. I have had so much I thought I wanted to communicate; about the light at this time of year, the practice of noticing, and friends who have the gift of being present. But then I went down the rabbit hole of looking at damage from hurricane Helene in western North Carolina where many friends live. In addition some local friends are heading down to Florida to rescue a few things from their flooded house before they call a demolition crew. I wanted to communicate―but now I just want to hide.
 
Today we drove north through the green rolling hills of Virginia along some of my favorite rural roads to a talk about the trees at Oak Springs Farm. I was in the passenger seat as the navigator, Warren was the driver. Just like last week, but last week we moved through the arroyos and mesas of New Mexico, gazing at billions of years of geologic history. I’m told that some arroyos historically were sheep trails which people then walked along. The sandy gravel became a dry watercourse that temporarily and seasonally fills and flows after sufficient rain. Erosion continued to deepen them into the shapes they are today. In New Mexico I was fascinated by the erosion, exposed rocks and sand, and the ever present contrast of roots, rocks, soil, and sky.

This afternoon looking at the images I could find of the flooding rivers in North Carolina my breath is taken away by the force of the water. I am awed by the number of roads that are blocked and closed, the lack of communication available, and yet we have images. I am sick at the damage and loss that so many people face. I know the people of North Carolina are resourceful, but it will be a long road to recovery.

Today marks the true beginning of summer for me and the end of this series. It’s the longest day of the year. This morning before the worst of the heat set in we filled a large blue plastic wading pool with cold water from the hose. Larkin, Zoë and I splashed and laughed and sat in the cold water. When Larkin had enough and snuggled with his mom I sat in the shade on the swing. He asked, “who’s that ?” and we listened and said, “oh, it’s the cicada.” Their song felt like another true sign of summer. Lingering, damp in the shade, studying the ornamental grass against the house and the clouds in the sky all reminded me of the parts that create the air of summer. Once Larkin napped, Zoë and I painted some fabric for a future quilt. I took the remaining paint and used it for today’s photographic backdrop. We both began to dream about other possible summer projects.

What’s the start of summer for you, the signal that it’s here? Is it the last day of school? The lilacs or day lilies? First sleep with the windows open? Smell of cut grass behind the gasoline of the lawnmower? The fat red tomato sliced thin and salted? A sunburn? Shins sweating? The first swim? The first hotdog off the grill? Throbbing light from the fireflies? Campfire smoke in your hair? Is it the first day of June? Is it the day when light’s longest? When your midday shadow’s shorter than any other day? When the sun sets and sets and sets?

–Nina MacLaughlin, The Start of Summer, The Paris Review, May 31, 2019

Today’s nine am diversion was taking Larkin to pick blueberries at our friend’s magnificent patch of high bush plants. For today’s late entertainment we made it to the pool at just 4:51 EDT, the moment that marks the solstice. As we slipped into the water it felt like the pause of the season. Our body temperatures dropped and we eased ourselves into summer mode. Even thought, scientifically, the solstice happened today, personally the solstice and longest day of the year is still marked for me on the 21st–so one more shard to come.

summer solstice

will be significant
im going to release something
soft and radiant
and true
into the world

–Jenny Zhang in My Baby First Birthday, Tin House Books, 2020

My family asked what I wanted to do for my birthday and I responded I wanted to go to the local river and wade in the water. I love having a routine and this week it is defined by our grandson who is 2 1/2. We wake a little earlier than normal and we nap more regularly. We splash a little more. Today, I forgot to take a net to the river to catch minnows, but maybe writing provides enough structure to capture the June light, the scent of the river, the coolness in temperature, and the way we all slowed down. Larkin took his time getting used to the spot. We walked up stream and placed rocks on a log in the middle of the river, and sat in the cool, slow current. Eventually, he got comfortable enough to bob and paddle a bit before it was time to come home for lunch.

On our evening dog walk my daughter asked what do I want to do with this year ahead of me. My response was that I want to keep swimming, do some juggling, spend more time in the studio, and do things that bring smiles to all of our faces. She said, “you already do most of that.” Hmm, yes, but I want to keep it up and make an even more blurred and beautiful pattern.

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living. Each day is the same, so you remember the series afterward as a blurred and powerful pattern.”

–Annie Dillard, in The Writing Life, Harper Perennial, 1989

In the evening before the sun goes down I like to step outside, sometimes to water, other evenings to empty the kitchen compost, or when there is a colorful sunset I walk to the top of the driveway. I remember my mother was always driven to see the sunset. It was if she expected to be saved by the changing light. I like to linger in the quiet after sunset hoping to see the moon. I don’t expect the light to save me, but I do love the ritual at the end of the day.

The Light Continues


Every evening, an hour before
the sun goes down, I walk toward

its light, wanting to be altered.

Always in quiet, the air still.

Walking up the straight empty road

and then back. When the sun

is gone, the light continues

high up in the sky for a while.

When I return, the moon is there.
Like a changing of the guard.

I don’t expect the light 
to save me, but I do believe

in the ritual. I believe

I am being born a second time

in this very plain way.

–Linda Gregg, from In The Middle Distance: Poems by Linda Gregg, Graywolf Press, 2006

Garlic was harvested today, although not the pictured garlic. Cosmos seedlings planted, other plants watered, holes dug. Through all the process our job is to see beauty as well as the potential of how things can go terribly wrong. Life with a toddler is to love and be loved. It is also to find patience you never knew you could muster. There is such simple joy, beauty, power, emotion, strength, energy and exhaustion. We try to understand the perspective of the child, we watch, we empathize with the parents, we remember, and we imagine.

To love. To be loved. To never forget 
your own insignificance. To never get used 
to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar 
disparity of life around you. To seek joy 
in the saddest places. To pursue beauty 
to its lair. To never simplify what is 
complicated or complicate what is simple. 
To respect strength, never power. Above all, 
to watch. To try and understand. To never 
look away. And never, never to forget.




–Arundhati Roy, from The Cost of Living, 
Modern Library, 1999.

I remember when our daughter was eleven she flew to Maine by herself to stay with my parents on Heron Island for two weeks before we arrived. It was a huge adventure for all of us. She took one of my favorite photos–my mom blowing bubbles at sunset. I remember one night talking to her on my dad’s early bag phone. She was so excited to tell me that she had learned how snails move. I was glad to know she had slowed down enough to watch the snail emerge from its twisted shell and propel itself along a rock leaving a silver trail. It was the beginning of her going away from us into her own shadow ways, into the light of her life.

Snail

I go from you, I recede
Not by steps violent
But as a snail backing
From the lewd finger of humanity

I go from you as a snail
Into my twisted habitation.

And you!
It does not matter how you
React. I know the shadow-ways
Of Self
I know the last sharp bend
And the volleyed light.

You are lost
You can merely chase the silver I have let
Fall from my purse,
You follow silver
And not follow me.

--Patrick Kavanagh, in Collected Poems, WW Norton, 1973

Our daughter Zoë arrived late last night with her husband and their two and a half year old son. It was a tough ride from NYC to our house. During the drive I’m told they debated if the late night drive was worth the effort. However, Larkin’s full day of digging in the driveway, a trip to the farmers market, watering the garden, a swim in our community pool, and dinner on the porch made the effort worth while. I have been deep in the summer memories of Zoë at this age. It’s so fun to reach forward and imagine what our grandson’s summers might hold.