When Mama was young her father built his family a summer cottage on the Long Island Sound. The cottage was bare bones simple. Rooms were small, walls were thin, kids all slept up the ladder steep stairs in the unfinished attic.
There wasn’t a flush toilet until I was five or six. And the bathroom, when it was finally built, wasn’t inside the house. You had to go out through the back door to the little shed attached to the back of the kitchen. Nothing but the basics, the toilet and a sink, but heaven compared to the two seater at the back of the lot.
I dimly recall an outdoor shower but I don’t remember using it much. We spent most all day at the beach and if I was crusty with salt, well, that was all part of summer. Every summer. Along with sunburns and lazy afternoons reading in the hammock, a big canvas thing strung between a couple of trees. There were card games and coloring books and jig saw puzzles. There was no TV.
It. Was. Heaven.
Four generations of family called it home in the summer. Aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins. We took turns and overlapped. And when the cousins were quasi adults in college and wanted a private place to…entertain, it became the winter weekend no-tell motel.
It’s a wonder we never bumped into each other.
We went to a family reunion there when FirstBorn was a baby. Flew in from California. By this time my grandparents were long gone. But their children, their grandkids and the great grands were all there.
It was the last time we were all together. People moved away. People died. The cottage was empty most of the year, even in summers. Eventually the decision was made to sell it. The new people tore it down and built their own house. A real house, a year round house.
Sound Beach. Our history grew into our vocabulary. When we liked something we said it reminded us of Sound Beach. Norway reminds us of Sound Beach. The narrow country lanes in my part of California are like the narrow roads we drove there. Wicker chairs. Hammocks. Hot summer nights. We were summer people, we never lived there but it was HOME.
This morning I woke up to an email from my sister, the one in Norway. A friend had been visiting Long Island. Armed with the address and Google Earth, she took pictures of the new place on our old property.
It gave me such great pleasure to see the house they built. A home with flower baskets on the front porch. Painted yellow, almost the same color as the cottage. It sits back from the road, with a lawn in the front. It’s well kept and looks comfortable. Looks like family.
Nana would’ve loved it. Mama would’ve loved it. And me? I could move right in.
I didn’t think I’d ever want to see the new house. But life is about growth and change. Moving forward. My family shares the memories of a magical place. But we have moved on.
And now it’s time for others to make memories of their own.
I came home from work tonight and realized I really had to water the fruit trees. I planted them a couple months ago, two apples and a pear. I planted them on a terrace Mr. Spouse built last year.
Mr. Spouse does like to build things, especially when it involves stone.
We backfilled the terrace with Gucci dirt. Topped it with pony poop. Got a GREAT crop o’weeds growing between the trees. Thick and lush, waist high. Orchard grass. Rye grass. Wild peas. The biggest clover you’ve ever seen.
Umm…too green to whack just yet. Too tall to mow. But they blend in with the rest of our forest home. And yes, they will go away soon enough. A little slatted table will take their place. A couple of colorful chairs.
Meanwhile, it’s Sophie’s favorite place. She disappears in there. The weeds close over her head. She’s too busy hunting to come when called…all sorts of critters call the terrace home. Lots of rodent holes and I’ve seen a bunny or two.
Which is why I’m not bothering with a garden this year.
I had to water the trees by hand. Haul the water up the hill two buckets at a time. The hose was otherwise engaged and the irrigation isn’t in yet. So it was just me and a couple of buckets in A Little House in the Big Woods moment. Which is fitting since we DO live in the big woods.
Me and the buckets and the bees. Bazillions of big fat bees buzzing around the peas and clover. They weren’t bothered by me and I wasn’t bothered by them. By the way, do you realize how hard it is to photograph those suckers? They move faster than my auto focus.
A piece of clover caught on my shoe and followed me into the house. Told you it was big!
This time last year we woke up to snow. Ah, spring!
The first time I met Mary*** (not her real name) I went home and killed someone.
Well, actually I went home and shoveled horseshit…continued shoveling horseshit because that was what I’d been doing before I met her. Before I drove down the lane and introduced myself to the new neighbor who’d yelled at my son a few minutes earlier and forbidden him to cut across the back end of her property.
On a trail through the woods used by the locals for years.
She was… polite when she first came to the door. Frost old biddy all decked out like June Cleaver, down to the pumps and pearls. Squeaky clean. I, on the other hand, was in my manure pickin’ clothes. Dirty shorts. T-shirt with a stain of green horse slobber where you couldn’t miss it. Black rubber boots and a baseball cap.
I was nice when I introduced myself. The smile was, umm…real. I did not offer to shake hands because I’d come straight from the barn and my hands were not presentable by anyone’s standards. Even mine. So I stood there on her front porch, said hello and welcomed her to the neighborhood. Then I mentioned she’d met my son.
It went downhill from there. She blasted me about trespassers (and those who trespass against them). Forgive us our sins, oh Lord, especially if I said something rude. Which I may have. In fact I’m sure I did…but only towards the end.
We did not get off to a good start.
So I went home and continued shoveling shit. And while I was shoveling, I plotted her murder.
It was a most entertaining hour.
I finished with the horses, fired up the computer and started writing. Fictional revenge was oh so sweet. Mary, in my mind, became a far more colorful character than she could ever hope to be in real life. Thank God for literary bitch slapping. Eventually she was joined by a former sister-in-law. And a former boss. And a chairman of the board.
One by one they replaced Mary on my shit-o-meter. Her character took on aspects of them all, eventually coming into her own.
I worked on the story from time to time. People who came into my life and pissed me off found their way into it. People who came into my life and amused me…same. Murder. Parody. A little bit o’romance. My own private world where I could dictate Who. Did. What.
I was a couple hundred pages into it when something bright and shiny caught my attention. Or maybe it was a rabbit. I dunno. I just put it away one day and went on to other things. Lately I’ve been toying with the idea of finishing it.
And then last night around dusk I walked down the lane to fetch the mail. The box is where the lane meets the county road, about a quarter mile away. A young man drove by in a pickup and stopped to chat. A nice kid, Mary’s grandson. And then she drove up. Mary. She’s lived here over a dozen years now and we’ve never really talked other than polite hellos at the mailbox. But last night we all chatted. Most of it was Mary, admiring her embarrassed grandson. Asking me to admire him too. Which I did.
Then she reached through the car window and took my hand. ‘We had a rough start,” she said, ‘but I’ll never forget what you said to me.”
Oh crap, that was a long time ago. What the hell did I say to her??? She couldn’t have heard me call her a bitch under my breath when I got into my car that day, could she?
She looked at her grandson. Looked at me. “You told me I could walk on your property anytime I wanted to. I never forgot that.”
Damn…was that an apology? I. Think. It. Was.
But what the hell, I’m still killing her off. Cause it’s a good story. And I’m going to finish it one of these days.
Internet elves and high tech sprites are having their way with me tonight. Teasing. Tantalizing. Coming oh so close to a connection and then poof, just like that…or is it pffft?…they disappear.
Taking the internet with them.
Damn damn damn little cyber fairies!
I’m dashing this off while they’re out and about. Drinking a beer somewhere, no doubt. Laughing at my frustration. Letting me think I’m online. Until I go to leave the page and find myself adrift. Untethered to any strands of the web.
They’re flitting around the network, like a flashlight induced Tinkerbell bouncing off the ceiling. The way she did in my house when I was growing up.
And so I’m going to pack it in for the night. Bid you adieu and leave you with a little clip from Miss TBell herself. Although I have to confess I haven’t been able to watch this all the way through. Connection. So if it turns out to be something other than Disney, oh man…I’m sorry.
I was at work the other day, eating lunch in the staff room with a couple of co-workers. One of them, Laura, was telling us about a breakthrough riding lesson she’d had the day before. Laura’s no novice when it comes to horses, she’s an accomplished rider as well as a trainer.
Whoa, wait up. Time out. This is an ART blog. What does a riding lesson have to do with painting?
EVERYTHING. Because as Laura was telling her story, talking about the AHA! moment that took her from one level of horsemanship to the next, I sat there with a great big lightbulb going off in my head. 300 watts of high intensity Arty Life brilliance!
KA-BOIiiiiiiiiiNG!!! (that’s supposed to sound like a cartoon spring)
So here’s what I remember about Laura’s lesson. She’s in an arena with a handful of other riders. At one end of the arena were horses being worked on the ground. Distraction. None of the horses being ridden wore bridles. No reins for the riders. Just a hank of mane to hang on to. Well hey, riding without a bridle is impressive but on a scale of 1-10 it’s not like it’s a 12 or anything. You ride with your body. Seat, legs, weight, balance. Reins are like a telephone line, another means of communicating with your horse. Communicating, not controlling. Because when it comes right down to it, the ponies got you beat hands down when it comes to size and strength.
The thing that took this lesson out the the ordinary was the riders weren’t giving direction to their horses. They were just along for the ride, so to speak, letting the horses move about however they pleased amid all the other distractions in the arena. The object being to ride through whatever craziness that might come up.
Which of course it did. Because horses are curious. And reactive. As in holy crap!!! I only came over here to say hello and now she’s going to kick me and so I spinnnnnn around until my brain flies out my ears and then I must runnnnnnnn for my life! And runnnnnnn some more! And keep runnnnnnning because I’m bat-shit crazy and I CAN!!!
When you’re on a horse that does the bat-shit crazy thing, your first inclination is to tighten up and fight against it. Try to control it with the size and strength you don’t have. The thought of broken bones is right there, front and center. Which just makes you tighter. And the situation more dangerous, deteriorating until it becomes one of those oh shit! situations.
But when Laura’s horse went into crazy-ass mode she remembered the object of the lesson and ahhhhhhhh...relaxed right into the fear. Consciously softened her body and rode it out. Not trying to control or direct anything, Just communicating to her horse with her body, a language he could understand, that there was nothing to be afraid of.
And. It. Worked.
AHA! Lightbulb moment here!!!
See where I’m going with this?
It’s just like riding the Wild Crazy ART PONY!
Wild Crazy ART PONY really, really wants you to relax. Because creativity can be a scary-ass thing. It can take you places you don’t want to go. Like scribbles. Or doodles. Or throwing paint, using those colors. Or making something NOT PERFECT.
Just perfectly INSPIRED. And perfectly AUTHENTIC.
But the natural inclination when faced with unbridled creativity is…to tighten up! To put on the brakes and say whooooa…look at that line, it’s the wrong color/shape/size. I need to paint over it, erase it, tear it up, start again. In other words…WORK IT TO DEATH.
Because we are afraid…it’s not good enough. It won’t sell. People will say unkind things.
And who am I to trust my inspiration?
Ohhhhhhhh…this is where I was going to say (in a kind, motherly fashion) You are an artist. Or writer. Dancer, teacher, whatever… I was going to be loving and gently remind you who you are.
But I’m not going to do that.
You see that wild art pony over there? Well, climb aboard. Go for a ride. And when things get crazy and you feel out of control and you want to tighten up and rein in thatfabulous, spectacular creativity…ahhhhhhh…remember the language of the wild pony. Relax. Lean into it instead. Let it take you where it needs to go.
And then you can tell SHOW me who you REALLY are.
Before you go, I want to share a short video with you that is one of the most inspiring, joyful, AWESOME displays of trust and communication between woman and horse that I’ve ever seen. I’ve had it on my desktop for the longest time, watching it at least once a day because it makes me feel THAT good.
So go ahead and watch it. Think of the Wild ART PONY. And be inspired.
Oh. My. So many adventures in Arty Life land the last couple of days. Brace yourself because this post is going to be skipping from one thing to the next, each topic guaranteed to make you more dizzy than the next.
First…and only because it happened minutes ago and I’m still as jumpy as a tweaker from the adrenalin rush…my brush with wildlife. There was a bear rat in the hay shed. Big sucker. But I was BRAVE. Oh, indeed I was, even with flip flops on my feet. No girly screaming like I did with the mouse. No. This time I was brave enough to stomp and shout with a very big voice like a very scary person. And bang a couple metal trash lids together like a one woman marching band. And Mr. Rat was so impressed he fell off one shelf and jumped down from another. The last I saw was his bare naked tail as it disappeared behind the hay.
Begone with you Templeton!
Now that I’ve impressed you with my wildlife management skills…you ARE impressed, aren’t you…now we can move on to Precious Man Dog (AKA Bean, AKA Benny) If you read Friday’s post, you’ll recall PMD was sorely in need of a haircut. Being a poodle mix the hair just grows. And grows. I let it grow over the winter to keep him warm. Dreadlocks happen and matts and clumps of thick, dense felt take over. Then in the spring I take to him with scissors and we start the cycle all over again.
So this was PMD last week.
This is him today, half the size he used to be. But so darn cute I can’t stand it.
Sophie is in the middle of her spring trim. I have to wait until she’s dead asleep before I can get certain spots. Like her chest. Right now she’s sporting a whole lot of chest hair. Throw a couple gold chains around her neck and she’d be a ringer for Burt Reynolds.
Okay, now it’s time to move on from critters, both wild and domestic, and get to art. Got a couple works in progress to show.
This is acrylic, 2’x2′. Don’t have a clue where it’s going but will know when it gets there. Layers and scribbles. Layers and scribbles.
This one is also acrylic, 36″x48″. Still very much a work in progress. Oh crap…as I’m writing this I’m wondering if I put the lid back on the jar of Titan Buff…well, let’s hope I did because it’s dark and I’m not heading back down to Studio Grande.
Speaking of Studio Grande, Mr. Spouse got some sheet rock up in the new! improved! Studio-Grande-to-be.
He was hoping to have it all rocked this weekend but it was slow going. Hard work indeed. But this is how Mr. Spouse relaxes from his desk job, he builds stuff. And I’m not complaining. By the way, this photo was taken after 6PM. Still good natural light, at least at this time of year. Even more when the tarps come off the skylights.
A gentle reminder that Wednesday is Random Acts of Art. I hope some of you will join me in sharing where you hide your treasures. You can send me photos before Tuesday (like, today) and I’ll post them on the blog. Or you can post the link to your own blog anytime between Wednesday and Saturday.
I’m posting art every day on my FaceBook page. Pop on over and check it out. And while you’re there, do me a GREAT BIG HUMONGOUS favor and click the ‘like’ button (for the page) if you haven’t done so already. And if you’ve already liked my page, pat yourself on the back because you are my BFF and I love you…truly love you… almost as much as I love chocolate!
