Edge time (chaptered)

Chapter 1.  – seaside

Not two full days home from my blissful week of music in Swannanoa and I find myself flying east to my soul’s home in Maine to visit friends of auld.  These are friends who have known me longer than they haven’t, and I am blessed beyond the stars to have them in my life still.  As a family we are fragmented this year for what is usually our time of solidarity.  But this is how it is to be. One must follow his heart home for recovery after a Big Summer of Big Work;  another, I have secretly purchased a two day ticket up to join us for just a moment or two and fingers crossed it all works out as planned (it does).  And lastly, our anchor in all things fun, my hub Tony, does his best to come along for just a few days.  He is successful and we pack a lot into a couple of days time off.

We spend as much time as possible by the sea or in the sea.  Ferrying to our favorite places….

….eating oceanic gifts of the odd lobster or oyster;  swimming, beach-combing the ever interesting, ever-changing wrack-line.

To me this is paradise and I collect a few little tid-bits to drag home to paint.

The coastline sets my heart all aflutter –  all I want to do is paint.  And yet I am restless and frustrated in a way I cannot name – torn between time with those I love and miss all year long, and my desire to make stuff.  I also find myself really missing the music I have only just the week prior been steeped in, more so than in other years.  Perhaps the music is sinking deeper into the pores after all?

Eventually, the paints do come out.  But it takes time.

And wandering.

And keen observation.  But the art does come.  It starts slowly.

In between boat-trips and cock-tailed laughter, oysters and teenaged catch-ups, we take some time to drive round the old haunts of our early days all together -when there was Peace in the land but our boys did their military duties, deploying too often for our liking, even when babies were due.  These are the things that can seal friendships for life.

In spite of hard winters and time apart, we remember our days in Maine with rich fondness.  It is one reason we come back each summer.

Chapter 2.  – to the lake side

Soon our seaside time was at an end and we were headed inland to a lovely lake house we’ve taken to commissioning for a week each summer.  It feels like home, all the while we discuss going full on ocean-time.

We are torn.  We love this place.

We love it’s moody skies and ever-changing weather patterning.

And the sunset views, which never disappoint, even on rainier evenings.

Chapter 3 – romancing the stone

Before my family leaves, we take a little kayak jaunt across Long Pond to Beaver Brook where I am captivated by a stone divided into three parts by ancient ice and time and other such forces.  I vow to go back to sketch the place, as I have come with nothing but a hat and a paddle.

Soon enough, though surrounded with dear friends, I am left as the only Bogard on vacation which is a strange sensation.  Tony has been dubbed the Julie McCoy of the group, always corralling us all to gaming and cocktailing, water-sport contesting and the like and things are really, really quiet with-out him around.  This all plucks and strums strings of empty-nesting woes I don’t even think I was aware of until now.

I play it all out in the boat house on my flute.

I make it back over to the little cove where the Beaver Brook runs and the captivating stone resides.  I marvel at the language of light and shadow which I can barely translate.

I believe there is something here to translate.

And so I ask the stone to help me.

It’s a start.

I am not one for series usually, but I am called to paint and have been looking for a form I could play with, from painting to painting.  Not just the one-and-done sketch I usually go in for.  This stone is just the ticket and I am enjoying exploring it’s complexities.  There will be more, especially once I am home near the oils.  I have traveled lightly this trip.

Chapter 4 – critters large and small

One day I go for a run across the way on the Mountain Road.  A place I return to every year for it’s lake views through the trees, its lack of proximity to cars and traffic noise in general.  Along the road I find a sweet feather which is eventually identified as a low wing feather of a wild turkey after much back and forth discussion and postulation both online and with my compatriots back at the camp.  I even meet a lovely older gentleman along the road who thinks it could be eagle, though my guess is owl.  I am not disappointed with turkey, as they are wonderous to behold in the wild.

I set out to sketch this lovely gift before I must leave it behind here where I found it.  Sometimes I keep feathers, but this one shall stay.

I appreciate it getting my paint brush filled and setting me to painting, as it comes to me before the stone paintings begin.

This day’s run is truly fruitful as I also spy some horses through the edges of the woods and I stop to capture them with my phone-camera (the only camera I brought this year as I am traveling light.  Still not sure about this decision.)

The horses pay me no mind and I think about the wild ponies some artists I follow online are fortunate enough to have in their lives as they go about their daily wanderings.   I wonder what I need to do to have more woodland walking right outside my door, more ponies to spy on through the edges of the hedges.  This is a constant wondering, as always.

Most times we wander down to the water from our little house here, we are treated to the antics of a local loon family who have some still young but near adult fledglings along with them.  I borrow Amy’s proper camera with a decent telephoto lens to capture them up close for this post.

They are absolutely captivating as they call to one another, throughout the days and nights.  This is the soundtrack to my dreaming and I am glad of it.

I am indeed glad of dreaming in general as there has been some wakefulness in the household in recent days.  A wee mouse has gotten a bit too friendly, joining my friends in bed night before last, which gave them a start indeed.  Last night, as lights are out, I hear a rustling and sure enough, wee mouse (we hope it’s the same) is in a paper bag into which I have stashed my knitting and a few varieties of tea I like to bring on my travels.  This leads me to believe he is a country mouse indeed (I mean, tea and knitting, come on.)  and he is escorted out of doors by our brave knight in PJ’d armor.  No harm no foul, but we hope the lil thing stays outside for the remainder of our time here.  I calm my late night nerves with a bit of bourbon and sleep fitfully from there.

Chapter 4 – where to from here

I write this missive in present tense, a style I see on occasion over at one of my favorite follows, These Isles.  I have no idea if it works or not for others, but for me, today, right now, it works.  This writing style allows me to step outside of a linear path of  ‘what happened when’ and to step into the concept of the Traveling Now.  The Traveling Now is not unfamiliar to quantum theorists, though this name for it is from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series.  I find more and more that the order of things matters not.  What matters is that we are present in it.  Now.

On what might be the calmest evening left in the week, I wander alone down to the waterside for a quick swim in the moonlight alone under the stars.  If you’ve never skinny-dipped for whatever reason is holding you back, it is something I hope you do at some point in your life time.

I arrive back up stairs, sobered and refreshed (pre-country mouse adventure) and I find this by John O’Donohue (one of my all time favorite go-to writers):

THE CALL TO LIVE EVERYTHING

One of the sad things today is that so many people are frightened by the wonder of their own presence. They are dying to tie themselves into a system, a role, or to an image, or to a predetermined identity that other people have actually settled on for them. This identity may be totally at variance with the wild energies that are rising inside in their souls. Many of us get very afraid and we eventually compromise. We settle for something that is safe, rather than engaging the danger and the wildness that is in our own hearts. We should never forget that death is waiting for us. A man in Connemara said one time to a friend of mine, ‘Beidh muid sínte siar,’ a duirt sé, ‘cúig mhilliúin blain déag faoin chré’ – We’ll be lying down in the earth for about fifteen million years, and we have a short exposure. I feel that when you recognize that death is on its way, it is a great liberation, because it means that you can in some way feel the call to live everything that is within you. One of the greatest sins is the unlived life, not to allow yourself to become chief executive of the project you call your life, to have a reverence always for the immensity that is inside of you.

John O’Donohue

I like to think that even something as simple as going to the lake side for a moonlight swim in nothing but my birthday suit is one small way to ‘live everything’.

Tomorrow we leave this place.  As we do, we know nothing of the year to come.  The third of the four kids who do this magical week with us each year (our two went first, now theirs) is off to college in just a matter of weeks.  I do not know what the end of summer into fall-winter and beyond hold.  I have some ideas of things I’d like to set into motion, which I will do.  But for now, I read things that make my head and heart spin on its very axis,  I make plans for an upcoming show that has me thrilled and terrified in equal measure.  I continue to answer the (also terrifying though I do not know why) irresistible call to paint in ways I have not yet done.  I show up.

This summer has been a gift beyond imagining and I am grateful for it.  Each year I grow and make and play in the hopes I can bring that home to my friends and family and to my students along the way.  It is a gift, and I do not take it lightly.