For my Dad’s eightieth birthday he told me he didn’t want any gifts yet I felt it was important to celebrate this birthday as an accomplishment. My mom had died eight month earlier and had been looking forward to turning eighty. I went to Costco and bought a case of Budweiser beer bottles as Bud was always his choice. I brought the bottles to the studio and gessoed them white. Then I centered them on my wheel and painted them with some of my handmade brushes. It was a truly fun project to have twenty-four bottles that I had nothing invested in but to make them a little bit special. I wanted Dad to feel extravagant and celebrated, but not to feel like he had to keep the objects.
Of course he loved them and kept them. After his cleaning lady threw a few of them out he began to make two-sided digital flower images which he glued to cardboard with metal stems so he could place them into the bottles. The flowers morphed into portraits. Every time we came home there was a new bouquet of his flower children in the bottles. Somehow the one bottle I have saved is a simple striped one.
Right now, darkness takes a deep breath in. Hold tight. We’re riding the backs of the swans. There’s no flying without land, no emptiness without an edge. What world are we living in? And yet:
Here you are. Here you are, the winter tells us. An offer and a fact.
— Nina MacLaughlin, the ending to Inhale the Darkness in The Paris Review , November 30, 2020
It was one of those days when I wanted to capture how each blade of grass, dogwood bud, or grape vine tendril was emphasized by being encased in glistening ice. I carefully crunched through the icy snow while the puppy skittered and skated across the slick landscape. She monopolized my attention although I wanted to be lost in the intricacies of ice, reflections, drips, cracks and showering branches. At dusk I circled around our neighbor’s field. I like going up the steep hillside, able to look down on the pond and the swampy area upstream. Occasionally I can glimpse the studio. It reminds me of being on rooftops in the city.
Last night while talking to an old friend she reminded me how exciting it was to go up on my parents’ roof in Soho where we watched the sunset over water towers and the distant World Trade Center. My Italian friend–who I met when I was eleven when we lived uptown–remembered going up on that roof. He said it felt like being in some crazy movie including being taken afterwards by my older brothers to bicycle through Central Park in the snow; something he had never imagined doing! Sometimes we went to the roof via the fire escape, a skeletal black metal structure which was a way to escape up or to descend. When we went on trips my father would put one of his sculptures, a life-sized bumpy welded aluminum portrait of a woman holding a hammer, in front of the fire escape window with the shade down so that if a robber came down the fire escape they might be scared away. I had no fear of heights only excitement at the view.
from Ocean Vuong:
“During these aimless forays (in New York), I kept finding myself looking up—particularly on residential streets lined with anything from monolithic tenements to luxury brownstones. But I also saw, attached to nearly every building, a skeletal structure of architectural finesse equal, in my eyes, to any of the city’s glittering towers. Fire escapes. Not buildings exactly, but accessories. Iron rods fused into vessels of descent—and departure. Some were painted blue or yellow or green, but most were black. Black staircases. I could spend a whole hour sitting across the street from a six-floor walk-up studying the zig-zags that clung to a building filled with so many hidden lives. All that richness and drama sealed away in a fortress whose walls echoed with communication of elemental or exquisite language—and yet only the fire escape, a clinging extremity, inanimate and often rusting, spoke—in its hardened, exiled silence, with the most visible human honesty: We are capable of disaster. And we are scared. … I wonder what would happen if I were to bring the fire escape back inside. In fact, what would the fire escape look like if I were to wear it on my person, personality—in public? What would a fire escape sound like if it was imbedded into my daily language—and if I didn’t have to apologize for it? Could this be one reason we create art—one reason we make poems? To say the unsayable? … I approach it as if climbing the rungs of someone’s fire escape—whether I go up or down is between me, the reader, and the poet. And maybe nothing is burning at all. Maybe we are only up here for the view. But it’s up here that I wonder, at the risk of asking for too much, what if a fire escape can be made into a bridge? … And yet, in a time where the mainstream seems to continually question the power and validity of art, and especially of poetry, its need, its purpose, in a generation obsessed with appearances, of status updates and smiling selfies bathed (corrected?) in the golden light of filters, in which it has become more and more difficult for us to say aloud, to one another: I am hurt. I am scared. What happens now?, the poem, like the fire escape, as feeble and thin as it is, has become my most concentrated architecture of resistance. A place where I can be as honest as I need to—because the fire has already begun in my home, swallowing my most valuable possessions—and even my loved ones.”
— Ocean Vuong, from The Weight of Our Living: On Hope, Fire Escapes, and Visible Desperation, 2014, in The Rumpus
At this time of year I feel like time tightens around my chest. But this year it’s more intense than most not because we are busy but because of the extended hunkering down. I feel like I have been hoarding ideas of light, loading up on extra candles and firewood to stave off the longer winter and the cold to come.
I think back to my childhood in the city. It was fun to be out walking after five o’clock when Christmas lights were bright and street lights lit the way. My father was often the one to get us outside no matter what the weather. I have fond memories when we lived uptown of walking in Central Park late at night when there was snow on the ground and the city sparkled around us. I learned to ski in Central Park. My parents got cross country skis way before they bought us kids skis, so we trudged behind them in our downhill equipment. I can see my dad now, laughing as he says it was all a ploy to tire us out.
At dinner time after an outdoors day or really everyday, my mother was all about lighting candles to make the moment bright. My mother still appears in my dreams irritated that we have let go of their apartment loft because she can no longer find her candles. Tonight on what I hoped would be a snow day–but which has become a freezing rain day–it’s still a chance to be here by lighting the candles and a fire.
I try to get outside before dark. At 4:00 today I headed to town to drop off a box for UPS and then take a walk on a different path. This is a mostly blacktop loop with a nice view of hill and sky with a few more humans than my normal walk. For my puppy I aim to provide some different experiences. When we encountered a running group of high school boys we stepped off the path into the tall grass. While she sat they ran by.
Then there was an older man with a weaving walk wearing a red puffy jacket with an orange bucket and a long tool. I finally realized he was picking up trash. So with an excitable puppy and my hard to discard urban awareness I thought we should avoid him. When we got close I realized he was on his phone. As we passed him he hooped, yelled and lurched towards me. I pulled the puppy up close on her leash and stepped back. He said, “I just had to tell someone my granddaughter just got into NYU!” It was so out of place and unexpected I was speechless.
stark ridgeline leaden in winter grey, hawk out of place without blue sky
I woke to thirty eight degrees and pouring rain — my least favorite weather. I slipped on my muck boots, down vest, wool hat and new long tangerine colored raincoat. I bought this raincoat after I discovered my old black one was no longer waterproof. A bright color for dog walks on the margins of the daylight seemed like a great idea.
As much as I hate this weather I felt like Momo a character from a favorite children’s book called The Umbrella by Taro Yashima. The main character Momo was given red boots and an umbrella for her third birthday. But she has to wait days before she can use them. The illustrations are soft colored pencil drawings of city views and the coming and going, to and from school. Momo, which means peach in Japanese, tries to convince her Mom she needs the umbrella to keep the sun off but is told she has to wait for the rain. The story is a subtle lesson in the narrative of patience.
This morning my new raincoat felt like that umbrella. It was bright, waterproof and fit perfectly. It made my sopping wet route like a dance. The story reminds me of the beauty in bringing active attention to my repetitive everyday walks. The illustrations remind me of the view from our NYC Ninty-Fifth Street apartment. The yellow chair Momo sits in while putting on her boots feels like something I sat on. The raindrops bouncing on pavement are a micro moment from long ago bringing back the rhymes and rhythms of an urban childhood.
This well-thumbed novel Was the tale she loved best,– Fields of autumn rain.
— Richard Wright, from Haiku: This Other World, eds. Yoshinobu Hakutani and Robert L. Tener, Arcade Publishing, 1998
I remember one day when Zoë was a young teenager she and I went shopping at Target. When we were in the housewares department she told me that she couldn’t wait until she had her own apartment. When I asked her why she gleefully told me “because then I can buy cool, colorful plastic dishes.” I can happily report that when the time came setting up her first apartment she asked for some of our pottery for her kitchen. After a couple of moves she now has different sized bowls for oatmeal and ice cream.
Zen Boy
Why do you have only one bowl? I asked our son helping him arrange new kitchen cabinets three plates three mugs three glasses one bowl a red oatmeal- sized bowl He smiled I like having only one bowl
— Naomi Shihab Nye, in Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners, Greenwillow Books, 2018
I often tell people that growing up in a family full of artists I felt like the only space left for me was the table. In our New York City apartment my dad used one bedroom for his studio, my mother had a drawing table at the end of the living room for her work, my older brothers were making model airplanes and super eight films in their bedroom and my younger brother and I were sharing the other room. The rest of the apartment was filled with surf boards, bicycles, sculptures and prints. My parents slept in what might have been called the maid’s room in another era.
The theater of our home happened mostly at the dining room table. My father often read aloud family round-robin letters from his father and relatives. My brothers spun shaggy dog stories or concocted outrageous puns. I sat pondering the milk pitcher and mentally redesigned my misshapen first attempts at a sugar bowl.
During 2020 I have completely embraced our home in Virginia. I am happy to make small circles around our property as well as back and forth to and from the studio. But there are those moments when I miss the big cities of Washington, DC or New York where museums, galleries, restaurants and stages hold the promise of imaginative answers to our current situation. As I photograph for this series I have been struck by how I create a little theater of backdrops, objects and pots to express how hope is the opposite of desperation and how it is not as comfortable as certainty.
“Hope is the opposite of desperation—it’s not as comfortable as certainty, and it’s much more certain than longing. It is always accompanied by the imagination, the will to see what our physical environment seems to deem impossible. Only the creative mind can make use of hope. Only a creative people can wield it.”
— Jericho Brown, excerpt from One Whole Voice which in turn is comprised of extracts from “A God in the House: Poets Talk about Faith,” edited by Ilya Kaminsky and Katherine Towler, Tupelo Press, 2012. [In Poetry Magazine on Poetry Foundation website]
In wintertime I often dream about Maine. There are parts of Heron Island that only exist in my dream world, boats that could never really be seaworthy but somehow carry crazy loads of belongings. Even in December the tides of Maine enter my imagination and carry me far beyond the shelter of our Virginia home. When my mother was alive there was a boat we called The Veggie Boat that visited the island on Friday mornings. Many residents of the twenty-four island houses would arrive to buy the most beautiful and over-priced tomatoes, raspberries, oysters, cookies and bouquets of flowers. We all complained about how expensive it was but loved every perfect salad and pie that we ate. When my mother died the owner of the boat gave me buckets of flowers in her honor with tears flowing down his face. I can still see him, eyes full of water and appreciation for a woman who loved any bouquet of flowers with a beam of light running through it.
blessing the boats
may the tide that is entering even now the lip of our understanding carry you out beyond the face of fear may you kiss the wind then turn from it certain that it will love your back may you open your eyes to water water waving forever and may you in your innocence sail through this to that
My parents collaborated on some handmade children’s books in the 50s. This morning I pulled out Mr. Crow’s Christmas written in 1957. These books are a great balance between the two of them. There’s a lyrical drawn story line by my mother and the ingenuity and inventive mechanics of my father. She drew and wrote. He carved woodcuts, printed each page and bound it all with a red burlap cover. Even though I wasn’t born yet, in one of the last images there are three children coming down a set of stairs. There are two boys and a girl and the drawing of the girl looks like the images my mother made of me as a young child. I am glad these books exist. I love the drawings, the story and assemblage. Thanks to my mother for the story of the crow and for her love of candles.
Thanks Thank you for drawing the crow outside my window. Thank you for drawing the wrinkled bittersweet berries brightening the blighted ash. Thank you for drawing the stump, the mound and the dog with a broken hip. Thank you for drawing the horizon like that. Thank you for drawing the woman standing. She isn’t saying anything. I like that. Thank you for drawing the dry lightning. Thank you for drawing the grass crawling out from under the iron ball. Thank you for drawing the open skies. Thank you for adding color in the form of a tangerine drift of birds moving away toward the sound of a harp that embodies a heaven I can only imagine. I love this picture. I look at it every day. Thank you for not making a film instead. — Mary Ruefle, poet laureate of Vermont
I have been revisiting plant material I have used in prior decembrances, reusing old background panels but adding new pot combinations. It’s like the archive is alive and well and part of the palette. Each December I start over with the idea to post twenty-one missives. I create images of pots with stems or fruits or nuts and ponder the decreasing light. Every year I re-learn the same lesson–by focusing I can swim through the waves of December. I carefully look at the last leaves dangling off the branches. I bundle up against the wind. I admire the geese floating on the pond or the diving ducks or the great blue heron who unfolds its wings and flies with slow grace.
“Repetition is not failure. Ask the waves, ask the leaves, ask the wind. There is no expected pace for inner learning. What we need to learn comes when we need it, no matter how old or young, no matter how many times we have to start over, no matter how many times we have to learn the same lesson. We fall down as many times as we need to, to learn how to fall and get up.”
–Mark Neppo, October 1 entry in The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have, Conari Press
