the garden

Before i change my shoes and socks...

...otherwise known as my
profile photo...
Before i put away my water shoes
and acknowledge that i've been back in
my country shoes for quite some time
and before it becomes all about leaves...

i am drawn back to the sea

in two
oops, make that three ways.

First, i shall tell you about a field trip:
As October remained balmy in this next of the woods
it only seemed natural
to runaway for a couple of days.
The mission:
find a pleasant coastline closer to home than the island.

i confess that i relish the discovering before the discovery:
the combing over maps
the scouring of guidebooks
the surfing on the 'net for places where i've yet to roam.
So
after all that
i chose a place on Long Island Sound
in Connecticut
because it allowed us to spend most of the drive there
on quieter highways and even two-lane roads.
Surprisingly, Connecticut was obviously governed by
rich, unelightened souls when it comes to its coastlands
and has allowed all but a tiny portion of it to be taken into private ownership
making for very few public spaces on the water.

Nevertheless
what is public is quite special
(off season, that is).

We walked by the sea



drank in the sweet, sea air

scrambled over  magnificent boulders
and marveled at patterns in sand and stone

Yes!
we could not resist the sea
in the surprisingly hot sun
we put on our suits
and frolicked and laughed
swimming (!)
in the sea
in New England
in October!!

And drank in the light
each evening

(click on it to view a larger version, if you like)

 

So
this post has been running through my mind
waiting for me to sit down and get it out into the ether
when
this morning
i see an invitation from Marly, the poet and novelist
to visit and discover the Moby Dick Big Read
(which is really, really cool and
after you are finished reading this post
do wait, please
get thee hence)

Marly's Moby Dick link took me back
in my heart and mind
to my time on the island this past spring.
As i wrote in my comment to Marly,
i was transfixed by the Gregory Peck movie
when it was shown to us in junior high school.
i was drawn to the book by Rockwell Kent's woodcuts.
i had tried to read it, once
but my impatient mind simply gave up it.

While on island this year, i finally listened to an audio version
What a surprise and delight to discover
just how much humor there is in it
and the exquisite language and story telling
and, yes
all that deep meaning and allegory
and whatever
which i simply could not have gleaned from the paper.
i would have stumbled too much, over a language my mind could not hear.
It's a handicap, i suppose
my impatient brain.

Anyway, i absolutely loved it.
After all
that whale-shaped island has become a
permanent part of my soul

And, once again
i loved rummaging around in the ether
for illustrations to share with you
and found other little marvels
by Barry Moser
(if you click on the images
you'll find the page from whence they came)

i so love this one...which is nearly an illuminated font

 

 

i confess:
i zoned out listening to Melville's minute discussion of the classification of whales

 

Bo Bartlett's self portrait
is how i see Ishmael

Drawn back to Kent
this image always stops me
cold

i think of the men
the dangerous voyageous that were often counted in years
and their families
the women and children back on Nantucket
waiting
but also living adventurous lives
and running their world.
Which brings to mind the phenomenal
very much different
hand-stitched art of Susan Boardman
whose "embroidered narratives"
illuminate and celebrate the lives of
women who lived and shaped Nantucket
for 400 years.

Susan paints and dyes the fabric that is her canvas
and often carves wood and bone ornament to help tell individual stories
or illustrate life as it was and is
on a remarkable spit of sand that lies
30 miles out to sea.

i have not attempted to "lift" an image
from her website (which is brilliant in its own right)
but urge you to go there yourself
beginning with the piece she made
to serve as the cover of the monograph
for an exhibition of her work at the Nantucket Whaling Museum.
then, click to her home page.

Her works are small
composed of achingly tiny stitches.
A large basket of magnifying glasses
stood at the door of the exhibit.
Do click on individual pages of her work
so you can use the "magnifying glass" feature
to see details.
This one, of Wonoma, a native of the island
is one of my favorites

Some of the women sailed with their husbands

Susan also celebrates contemporary Nantucket women
and their gardens

This one, for Mary Eliza Starbuck
may be my favorite.

Oh.
Well...
would you look at that...i've used up the entire day
with all those links and frolics.
Are you still here?
i am certain of one thing
when you have the time to look at Susan's work
you will be glad for it.

And
if you are even the teensiest interested
in the Great American Novel
do remember to click your way over to the
Moby Dick Big Read
(read by English men and women
ha!
but that's okay and actually wonderful
in its own way.
But, really
would those Brits listen to Americans
reading Dickens or Austen? i seriously doubt it.)
and...
feast upon another wonderful work

 

i flee, i fly

The sun is a beast today.
Thin clouds are doing their best to protect us.

in my next life i wish to be a bird or a cat
so that when the incompatible weather (heat) arrives
i could fly away

Oh! let me be a chimney swift
and live my life on the wing
away, away up so high


or
like the purring fur ball that lives here
let me sleep all day
wake just long enough to stretch, eat a morsel, drink
stretch, then sleep until it's gone.


If i must be human
then let me
when the suffocating heat arrives
flee to a perfect little house
on an island beach at the lip of a shallow harbor

where the thermometer rarely touches 80 degrees F

Come June, i dash in and quickly splash out of the little sea at my door step


 
and in July it is delicously chilly at first but only bracing
and in August my dear friends come visit
and we share breakfast
then body surf in blue green waves
and in September i spend every evening watching the sun drop past the horizon


  
and in October i come back to this home and the turning of the leaves.

ah, well.
Finally, i can take a deep breath.
Because, while i've been composing this
a stiff breeze has kicked up
and clouds are thickening
and is that thunder i hear in the distance?!

Today, with heat smothering my face
singeing my nerves
i did remember some important things:

• i used to live where it was truly hot and many friends and family still do
• i once dreamed of living here

and now, here i am.

i can look out any of my windows
at the 1001 shades of green
and the blue sky and cotton white clouds
at the iris & peonies


allium & grasses and a the buds on a deutzia

and the first roses

i will close my eyes and savor the sweet evening breeze on my sweaty face
and thank my guardian stars that
i could flee that desert before i turned to dust
and live and breathe, here
in this big house with big windows full of trees and sky
and in this garden.

 

August 24th

even though the air has been luscious
the last two mornings
cool enough to require a sweatshirt
in the garden
i'm still obsessed with water.

the lovely reflection photo and
painting at monkeypaints last week
put me in mind of this photograph
i made when staying a bike's ride from
Kailua beach on Oahu in august
many years ago.(if you notice the tiny
human legs in the upper left corner, it gives
a sense of scale to the size of this reflection)

talk about humid and hot.
stifling is the word
for any spot on the island not
brushed by the onshore winds.

i was staying with my sister's friend and
her big family. i do not believe the
parents or kids noticed that i borrowed
a bike and spent the whole of every
day down at the beach where the
winds from the sea and amazing water
were a blessing
a miracle, yes
paradise.

(okay, i did take two days to ride
the bus around the island and did get
off in a couple of places--including
Waikiki--but quickly decided to
stay put by the sea)

August 5th

extremes
yes, it felt hot on the island
but not like it does here
back at home.
our dear, loyal friend not only cared for our
cats and house while we were away
but kept the garden alive during terrible heat
and drought conditions.

drought
family and friends in the west scoff when i
use the word
i understand
i used to live in the desert too

but it is hard watching my river birch
rain leaves with 80% gone
no way of knowing if it will survive

but
i am pleased that one of my planting
schemes has proved to be very
successful for the extreme fluctuations
we experience. but, my new mantra:
soaker-hoses soaker-hoses soaker-hoses.
i may never travel during the hot summer
again but if i do there will be hoses in place
and a timer so my friend will not have to
work so hard.

if only this beloved ocean were only
five minutes from my house!