Mexican Scherzino

Sunset near Carmet, CA, 5/13/08

This is a little song for guitar by Mexican composer Manuel Maria Ponce, a gentle little tune, and whenever I hear it I have to stop what I’m doing and just listen, savoring each note and chord. It has a touch of melancholy in it, too, like a soft, sad smile.

When I hear it, I see warm evening sunlight and lengthening shadows over the town of Point Reyes Station, California. The main street is quiet, with little traffic, and a touch of golden dust hangs in the air. Bright yellow poppies bloom in a flowerbed, and people stroll, while others sit outside a café, talking and laughing.

The image that I see is of the next-to last day I was in California, nearly two years ago. Ber and Helen and I had been up to the top of Mt. Vision, then down to the cold, windy Chimney Rock, and had stopped in Pt. Reyes Station for dinner before returning to Sebastapol.

I was not ready to come back home yet; there were still things I wanted to do and see, but reality and responsibility were not to be denied. So I stood in that dusty village next to Tomales Bay, with the green hills rising all around, a short drive from the city that had so captured my imagination, and knew that I was about to leave it all behind. I might never see it again.

That evening Ber and I sat on a bench at the top of the rose garden on the hill behind Helen’s house, and watched a glorious sunset over the Sonoma County landscape. Gold, orange, crimson, soft blues and lavenders, as Mt. St. Helena faded into the dusk, and lights appeared and sparkled in the valley. We didn’t talk much, but just watched she sky put on a show, until the colors faded like cooling embers, and we returned to the house.

Next day we returned to the city, watched a ball game, got stuck in impossible traffic in the middle of the city, and found our way to our last stop, the hotel near the airport. In the morning we caught our plane and flew out of the sunlight to the cold and colorlessness of a rain-and-fog-bound New York City, then back to Vermont, where it seemed as though nothing at all had happened while we were away. Time had stood still here, but I had been so far, and seen so much, and had discovered so much… no small amount about myself.

Two days later I was back at work – physically. My mind was still in California, looking at that golden sunlight, hearing the voices of people I had met, and with whom I had spent too little time… Seeing starlight in San Francisco, feeling the warm evening breeze beside Tomales Bay.

The Cold Comes In

An arctic front blew through today, with gusty wind and blinding snow squalls. The snow came soft and slow at first, falling gently, drifting down like a Christmas snow, looking more picturesque than anything else. Then the wind came, and the squalls, the billowing, blinding snow that hid even the nearest buildings and made the store I work in creak in protest. It's an old building, in drastic need of some serious work; the roof leaks and the walls are cracked. I almost expect it to cave in after a heavy snow.

It was a slow day at work - one small sale, and hours and hours of nothing to do. I had to pace to keep from falling asleep, especially after it started to get dark. No one was out in the difficult weather. I wouldn't have been out, if I'd had a choice. This is hibernation weather, weather best spent inside, making and eating soup; reading, writing and making out seed orders.

By the time I scraped off the car and headed home, the snow had ended and the clouds were breaking into gothic, silver-edged tatters, with the near-full moon shining though the mist of windblown snow that tore across the ground. The road near open fields had drifted pretty full, and sheets of snow streamed across in front of me, diffusing my headlight beams.

The wind is still blowing, though it has dropped some. I can hear it roaring through the pines, and feel the occasional sharp, cold draft, like a passing ghost, as the wind sneaks in around the ill-fitting storm windows. It's supposed to be a little below zero tonight - it may be there already. I will have to pull the drapes and shut out the cold.

This year I will...

This year I will... Ok, in reality, I will look at this post in a few months and laugh.

This year I will...

--Move into my studio. The woodstove is in the cottage, and I have only to move in my stuff, paint the skungy back wall, and start painting pictures. Spread out my braided rug, set up my drawing table, get my desk moved in, put up some bookshelves, get the phone line connected and buy another wireless router. Maybe get a studio easel, unlike the wobbly aluminum one I bought last year, which is really more for plein air work anyway. I've wanted the work space for years - now move in, and work!

--Learn to use my oil paints.

--Create stock in inexpensive artwork to sell at craft fairs and shows. Little watercolors of flowers, shells, rocks, fruit. I could even bring myself to paint pears, though I don't want to paint pears because EVERYBODY and his dog paints pears. Create a few designs for notecards, and have them printed up. Sell the prints for $3 each, the originals for $25 each. Maybe get an Etsy account.

--Enter a few juried shows. Why not? As long as the jury fee isn't outrageous, it can do no harm, and might open a few eyes to my stuff. I'll enter the South Burlington Art Hop again, and arrange months in advance to get that weekend off so I can actually attend the opening. I'm sick of my true avocation taking a back seat to waiting on people who insist on asking if there are two pillow shams in this pair.

--Experiment. Try abstracts. Finish the abstract "Walking With Nick." Go to galleries, learn about more art and artists.

--Get an agent. Not for the artwork; for some reason, writers ought to have agents, and artists ought not to have agents. Don't ask me why. Anyway, get an agent and start trying to publish some writing. Keep trying.

--Write more. Write more. Watch less TV, unplug the internet. Write. Write. and then write.

--Go places. Follow through on the plans to visit old graveyards in Massachusetts. Go to Shelburne Museum, Bennington Museum. Hike up Lye Brook.

--Allow myself to miss a few ball games. Why miss a sunset just to see another dull 4-2 win over the Orioles?

--Be patient. Count blessings. Be thankful. Be helpful. Be accommodating. Don't get mad when my plans are knocked awry by other responsibilities. Take a breath, let it go, move on.

--Beware of having expectations. Have something to look forward to, but don't be crushed in the event of a change of plans. Go day to day, which is really all any of us do, anyway.

A Beginning

Lyman's Mountain - The mountain that has my back. Photographed 1/18/10

I call this "Pen and Ink" because I am a writer and an artist, and pen & ink are things with which I work. Pen & ink drawings, using technical pens with tiny points; using a hefty fountain pen to putting words on paper.

"Pen and Ink" is also how much of the world around me looks for much of the year, with wooded hills and mountains etched against the sky like a meticulous drawing.

This is what I do: I draw, I write, I paint. I take care of my aged parents the best I can. I work at my humdrum job. In the summer, I garden. I always observe, and always ruminate.

This blog will be about these things, observations about my world - the natural world, the people around me, the things I do to keep my feet under me. I will write about food - growing, preparing, eating. I'll write about baseball, as the Red Sox seem to be part of my extended family. This is what I do, and this is who I am.

My friend Tony has a saying: "Be as a shark - never stop moving." If a shark stops moving, so I have heard, it will drown. If one stops moving forward - intellectually, artistically - one can just sink and drown from being in the same place for too long. Let me swim through the sea of ideas, and some of them will keep me alive.