She was spotted in the hedges near the road last week. Poor little dear had hurt her front paw and was favoring it gingerly as she hopped to a safer nesting spot.
The boys down the lane saw her next, and then the n’er-do-wells next door to them. Then yesterday, after the ambulance drove down the lane and Pat went to find out what was going on…the rest of the neighborhood came out for a gossip and everyone was talking about the baby raccoon.
Finn got her first look late the other night when the flashlight beam caught them a foot apart .So I worried, because I do, and I called the game warden. He said, matter-a-factly, that it was the time for the babies to be kicked out of the nest and she probably wasn’t rabid since she didn’t try and attack me and that she would just find her way in the world.
Harsh natural truths.
Pat sees her every time she pulls in the drive now and I’ve noticed that every car, every one of the previously obnoxious daredevil speedsters who flew in and out of our lane with completely reckless abandon…well they are now all slowing down and looking for a glimpse of our baby.
When Pat looked it up last night, google told us that they eat berries. So that is probably why she is sticking close to the mulberry tree.
And that is why, after the traditional three day waiting period…during which any animal that crosses my path has the option to disappear…but if they choose to stay longer than three days…well I am obliged to name them. And woe be tied to anyone who messes with her now…because the muses have spoken…
It’s a steamy July afternoon and the weathermen say it’s the coolest day of the coming week. So I am particularly enjoying the air-conditioned studio and I plan to stay right here at this computer for the next few days getting all the behind-the-scenes work done in preparation for the big Granary Gallery Show.
Only a couple weeks away now and I am easing off of my manic pace which has been sustained, with the help of caffeine and Tylenol, for the past several months. Those 12 hour days at the easel were intense and I’m kinda floating around in a daze without that extreme focus.
The calendar says tomorrow is the 4th of July. 150 years ago, this very afternoon, in just the same kind of suffocating heat and humidity that blankets the valley today, Gen. James Longstreet had ordered Gen. George Pickett to lead an assault on the Union soldiers holding their line on the hilltops of Gettysburg. The “high water mark of the confederacy” would be reached by softening the line with heavy batteries of artillery and sending in Pickett’s men. They did reach the Union soldiers and a few Confederates broke through… but the line held… Pickett’s charge proved to be the final battle in the bloody three day slaughter, and it turned the tide of the war.
I’ve been listening to the local NPR radio channel as they have broadcast live from the battlefields each day for the past week. If you’ve never been to Gettysburg, history buff or just tourist, it can be a very moving place to visit. Today, as the culmination of several days of re-enactment, the participants, and visitors, are lining up on opposite sides of the battleground. Then, in a solemn procession, they are walking across the fields to meet at the line where the original soldiers stopped that assault and there are meant to come together and shake hands.
When the crowds clear out, and the weather cools down, and both my knees have been replaced, I’m going to throw the traveling easel and the paint box in the truck and take a road trip over there and see if I can capture some of the spirit of that hallowed ground.
I was standing in the studio kitchen this morning, anchoring the cherry pitting machine to the counter, and figuring out how to position the bowls to catch the pits and cherries, when the phone rang. It was Herself telling me to get over to the log cabin…they just overturned DOMA. I had been monitoring the radio closely and, hearing no reports so far, and since so many got last year’s healthcare ruling wrong in the beginning, I was skeptical. So I went to the computer and when the word “unconstitutional” flashed on the screen the tears just poured out of me. I stumbled along the path to the cabin sobbing and into the arms of my babe. The rainbow flags filled the tv screen behind her and everyone in those crowds seemed to be crying as well.
It’s mid-afternoon now. The pie just came out of the oven. Herself has headed up to the lake for a swim. Most of the tissues have been carried to the trash bin. Our facebook family has overwhelmed the cyberworld with cheers of support. I’ve listened to my trusted commentators and read the ruling from the supremes. And I’m sitting here quietly now taking in the surprising depth of the morning’s first emotional response.
My belief has never wavered, but the torch was getting heavy and along the way it became easier to just settle for the life we had made with each other and hope for some broader equality to come for our grandchildren, both the straight and the gay ones. It’s still a very real fear to be openly gay in our neck of the woods and the scars of bigotry and hatred have not faded from my heart. So, over the last 23 years, we have kept a modest profile and done our best to be good neighbors and help where we can and kept the curtains drawn.
I think that surprising burst of emotion came in part from seeing the recent swelling of national support for gay rights and equality, and the fact that so many more somebodies stood up and said no more, this is wrong, we have made a mistake, we have caused injustice. I was expecting change, but not certain it would be in my lifetime. And then to read in the SCOTUS Ruling that they recognized how this has been so hurtful to families and stigmatized children. NOT the homosexuality mind you…but the differentiation of CIVIL rights…
writing for the majority opinion, Kennedy notes,
“…The differentiation demeans the couple, whose moral and sexual choices the constitution protects…And it humiliates tens of thousands of children now being raised by same-sex couples. The law in question makes it even more difficult for the children to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community and in their daily lives. Under DOMA, same-sex married couples have their lives burdened by reason of government decree, in visible and public ways. “
What he said.
There’s more pavement to travel on this road to equality.
Pennsylvania was one of those states which couldn’t run fast enough to the capitol to pass a version of DOMA. And it’s not yet clear how the details will play out for those of us still living under such regimes. But we have the law on our side now, and a magnificent candidate now running for governor, Tom Wolf.
And we have the momentum.
As our dear friend Maureen reminded us in a note of support today,
In the words of Martin Luther King “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
As she left for the lake,
on her way out the studio kitchen door,
Pat paused and looked back
and asked, “will you marry me?”
And the time honored traditions of the favorite meal of my “salad days” back in Watertown…Mussels and Fiddlehead Ferns…celebrated now in my dotage…
I’m still lifting a glass of the bottom shelf chardonnay in toast to the delicacy…
But nowadays I am using my organically home grown onions and garlic from the studio gardens…
An arc
Something thrown out into the world
Where it spins and bounces off of life
Then comes sailing back to where its journey began
In this case, two people
brought together by chance…by hazard
then launched into the world
to follow separate paths
in search of creative truths
and now reunited and returning …
Rex Wilder and I started our fling in the late 70’s when we met as students of life attending Connecticut College. He, with ambitions to be a poet. Me, the fledgling artist. On the road to masterpieces, we both carried around sketchbooks and filled them with earnest, if early, scribbles and thoughts. We scoured the streets of New London in search of authentic souls to gleen for signs of intelligent life in the universe. I, the Sancho Panza to his Don Quixote. And many a windmill did we tilt.
Then our trajectories divert and almost 40 years of pursuing our separate arts flies by…Rex becomes that poet and achieves fame and book royalties…I become that artist and get to paint every day.
And now the story comes sailing back to home and we, the seasoned artistes, have collided in one act of creation…
This, his second published collection of poems, is poised to be launched on its own journey…and humbly holding all those precious treasures in place…if you’ll forgive me…Suspended.
On so many levels this is magical. For us both, the circles within circles are joyous and stunning to celebrate and sitting back in my easel chair and pondering how far we’ve both traveled and being reminded of the youthful ambitious dreams that we shared finds me smiling alot these days.
I’m sure there will be much ado surrounding the official book release and I will keep you all posted about that. For now, you can access more information and even pre-order the book on Amazon via this link…click here.
And the original oil painting is currently on display at Gallery 1261 in Denver and you can visit it via this link…click here.
I’m waiting until I have book in hand to read all the poems but I have peeked at a few and they are delightful divertissements… I think you will enjoy.
We didn’t see the northern lights last night.
But it wasn’t for lack of effort…and enthusiasm.
I followed the sites and the live blogs and the gurus and… my instincts…and loaded my family into the station wagon and,
we ordered subs, and waited…and waited …
then toted them to Lake Pinchot and looked out over the glass smooth water and watched three tiny canoes make their way slowly around the edges as the sky darkened and the clouds which had been hanging around all day drifted to the east…
then we drove back over the hill to Reesers and again…
waited…
in a long but happy line for our first raspberry cones of the season
while over our shoulders the sun set behind the last of those clouds,
and then as the sky darkened we drove
and drove
up hills and down
trying to find the best…and safest…vantage point to view the majesty
but as nothing seemed to fit the bill
and the sky was mostly…dark
we circled ever closer
to
home.
I ended up sitting in the studio yard
wrapped in woolen wear
worrying that I had missed the show.
Sue, next door, and Pat were both smarter than I
and were inside at their computers researching just how and where and when
these colors would best be viewed.
So, when they called me on the phone in my woolen pocket
I heeded their pleas and came home into the warmth
and plugged into an online blog party of local skywatchers
who were progressively…albeit geekily…souring on the possibilities for Pennsylvanians
to be in the path of the lights.
I checked every fifteen minutes.
I listened to both my girls snoring happily.
I watched The Killing Fields.
I made it to the first full hour of this Sunday morning.
Then I signed off and tuned out.
The best parts…
we had a fun, if unexpected, date night.
We know all the highest points in our neighborhood.
Our little community came together and enjoyed some social networking time.
And I remain hopeful.
Friends have been checking in and the cake is out of the oven. A nice morning sitting in the sun in the garden looking for signs of spring and catching up with an old pal. Might even get a little painting done before the day is out but mostly I’m just enjoying the peace and love the this stage of life is bringing and the great fortunes of good friends.
Another passage of sorts is being played out on the island and our long loved refuge and retreat, Camp Sunrise, is finally facing the ravages of mother nature.
Here’s a painting of the bluff in front of camp from about 2003… and here is a photo of it now…
We’ve all known this day was coming. And I am forever grateful for the decades of opportunities to sit on this very porch and ponder the sea. As well as the gift of being able to chronicle some of its corners and quirks and patina in the paintings over the years.
will be moved in tact out to the back of the property…
way out to where that stone wall stands.
So I will take the lessons from this sunny spring day and look forward and ahead to many more years of walking this earth, and what’s left of this bluff and be grateful for each one of the flowers along the way.
from the Painter’s Notes…
I love listening to baseball games on the radio
and when I lived in Watertown Square, back in the 80’s,
I would sit on my fire escape overlooking the 7-eleven and the front steps of the catholic church beyond and tune in the Sox and work on the weekly crossword puzzle,
while watching the woman’s softball league practice in the park across the street.
When I was a much younger girl I played baseball with my friends. My brother Rob was a first class pitcher but he threw the ball way too hard for me. So I moved on down the line of brothers to Scott.
The two of us would play catch in the street out front of our home in Swarthmore for hours after school. I was learning Russian at the time and with each toss I would teach him a new word.
I still have my mitt, and the last time his son Neill visited the studio we got it out, and the old baseball which bears the signatures of friends along the way, and played catch in the yard.
My arm ached for days but the smile lingered in my heart for weeks.
That’s my old bat and glove in the painting. You can just make out the peace sign I taped onto it.
It was the 70’s after all.
But what is missing from the final composition is Gully whose nose was in my lap each time I ran from the camera to the chair to outrun the self-timer. Boy was she pining for those cracker jacks. I almost painted her in…but … the closest she’s ever come to a baseball was chewing off its cover…
or to ironing for that matter….
when, as a puppy, she would curl up in the wicker basket and wait for…
the 7th inning stretch.
I wasn’t paying attention … and that always spells trouble.
So when Zoe and I were making breakfast we heard the terrible news that…the IRON has been sacked ! USA reports that the people of the world have voted to remove the tiny token of the Iron from their Monopoly game. And replace it with … A CAT ? Really ?
Now this makes me sad. I am a lover of irons, and ironing boards, and…well…ironing. Such a meditative task and so peaceful and productive and now, I guess, out of step with the times.
Well, I offer up a few of my favorite paintings as an homage to a simpler, happier and more contemplative time when a warm whisper of steam would rise from the slowly drawn linen newly pressed linen…
