Passing through the Umbra

Mayan Man in the Moon

Firing the kiln, patching plaster, mounting reliefs in frames, patinating sculptures - I'm busy getting my work ready for a solo show, which opens in five weeks.  What makes this more complicated is that I'm also driving across the country in two weeks with all of the finished work, plus cats, clothes and laptops.  There's always a wild flurry of activity before my annual migration back East, but this year it's wilder than usual.  I'm trying really hard not to do anything dumb, like strain a muscle or cut my thumb.

No matter how busy I am, as a lifelong insomniac, I'm also an indefatiguable reader.  I can't fall asleep without reading first.  Right now, I'm reading a book, "Seveneves" by one of my favorite authors, Neil Stephenson.  Unfortunately, the book is freaking me out.  It's about the end of the world and although I've read a lot of science fiction, I don't remember reading anything before that made me look out the window to check that the moon was still there.  But not finishing the book isn't an option.  Because the moon of planet Earth is a big part of this story, I've been appreciating our moon as never before.  I can see why primitive people worshipped it.

Tonight there will be a lunar eclipse while the moon is at perigee.  It sounds like it will be amazing and I've given a lot of thought about where and how and when I want to see it.  Over the water?  From Eagle Terrace?  In my back yard?  I should be finished at work at the restaurant with a few minutes to spare before the eclipse and I'll be awake.  And probably a little more freaked out than usual.  I'm trying to think of this whole phase of pre-exhibition nuttiness as just passing through the umbra.

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Mists and mellow fruitfulness

Apparently, while I was building sandcastles and sitting around a firepit, summer abruptly pulled up its stakes and moved on.  Party’s over.  Summer’s gone and fall is here.  All this week I’ve scrutinized the colors outside, wondering as always, why it so immediately and completely looks like fall.  For one thing, the colors of the trees and the fields are reversed.  The fields gave up their blooms of yellows, golds, oranges and reds, turning deep and dark bronzes, browns and purples.  The trees are the season’s show offs, and the maples are already starting the show with twinges of yellow and scarlet here and there. 

What stopped me dead in my tracks on my walk this morning were white aster blooming amidst the creamy froth of the Queen Anne’s lace.  And then I saw lilac and purple asters waving among the blue cornflowers.  I’m not ready.  I need more time.  I'm aghast that August has ended.  Summer is my time of production and creation.  I need more.  I need a LOT more. 

But I also crave the calm and order of September.  The kids go back to school and we all enjoy the quiet and comfort of a return to normalcy and routines.  “Happy is the home where everyone learns and does his duty,” says that wild party animal, Martin Luther.  

My back yard is suddenly full of little birds smaller than sparrows – some kind of finches, I think.  Darting, flitting, fluttering, zoomming, divebombing – they are very busy.  Waving around ontop of a thistle, bungiejumping on a milkweed, suddenly, poof!  They’re gone.   But here, read the real thing!  Nobody can compete with Keats.

To Autumn, John Keats (1795–1821)
“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.”

Deer

Alert Fawn

Deer are a favorite subject of mine to draw and sculpt, partly just because they’re beautiful.  But they’re also sort of mystical; they appear and disappear right in front of your eyes.  My land is a “deer yard” so I see them often:  deer sleep in the grass, and graze on the plants, shrubs and trees.  I have apple trees and arborvitae, both favorites of deer.  In the morning, there are often deer beds of flattened grass out in the field grass, where they have curled up to sleep.  Deer are both my neighbors and houseguests. Each spring I see who has survived the winter.  In the fall, I try to protect the deer from hunters with “No Hunting” signs.  But there are hundreds of acres of unbuilt land surrounding and connecting to mine, some of which is used for hunting.  The deer have trails through the woods and often travel the same path down to the lake and back.  There is also a small pond nearby beloved by wildlife, where I saw a rare badger very early on a foggy morning.

Last spring, almost every morning on the five-minute walk from my house to my studio, I encountered an odd yearling buck in a different place on my land every day.   He barely interrupted his browsing and either glared at me as if to say, “what are you doing here?” or kept munching, completely unbothered.  I decided to clap my hands or turn on my cellphone to teach him that he should be running away, not socializing.  By the fall, he had fuzzy antlers, but still not much caution.  I haven’t seen him this year so close to the house or studio and I wonder whether he survived hunting season and then the winter.  I wonder whether he was the one eating my asparagus, blast him!

Deer are a perfect symbol of the challenges of the 21^st century:  animals living harmoniously with humans, adapting well to the perils of modern life and coping with a constantly changing habitat.  This year, the deer populations and behavior seem normal, but I’m seeing fewer mice, voles, snakes, butterflies and moths.  It’s not just the monarchs.  There are also fewer mourning cloaks, cabbage butterflies and swallowtails.  Not all species can cope with a changing planet as well as the white tailed deer. 

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Fruition, Better Late than Never

One thing I have to say about getting old is that it takes forever, but it also happens really fast.  Like everyone else it happens to, I’m surprised by the fact that I’m now an old person.  I’m not yet one of those people in the grocery store who gets in your way by walking so slowly.  I still walk fast enough that I zoom ahead of most people.  I still get impatient if I’m stuck behind a SMP (slow moving person.)  But I have to admit that sometimes I walk up the stairs very slowly because it’s painful.  I take meds that cause joint and bone pain, ontop of the various joint and arthritis issues.  I’m now one of those people with saggy, baggy parts on my face and body that I never wanted to look like.  I have joints that don’t want to work and bones that are thinning.  I seem to pull muscles taking a nap.  Gravity is relentless.  Like the warning in Genesis about sin (“Sin crouches at the door; it waits for you.”) gravity is out there, too.

On the other hand, everything I ever really wanted has happened; my dreams have come true; I have my heart’s desire.  I wanted to be an artist and I am.  I wanted children and I am blessed with two wonderful children who are alive and well.  They’ve even grown up to become healthy adults with college degrees and jobs.  And I like them.  Plus, there are grandchildren!!  

Every summer, I celebrate with a BLT made with the first fresh, home grown tomatoes.  Today, I enjoyed the season’s first BLT for lunch and it was glorious, as always.  But I would like to point out that it’s August 29.  I’ve been having salads and pastas with fresh cherry and grape tomatoes and herbs for about a month, but the big 12 oz. full size tomatoes take longer.  And it’s been an odd year for growing things:  late frosts; storms with terrific, destructive winds; not enough rain; a summer that almost didn’t happen it was so short -  maybe 10 days of hot sunny weather.  Sometimes fruition comes late, but that is much, much better than never. 

Gather ye tomatoes while ye may, for Old Time it is a-flying;

The tomatoes that are ripe today, tommorow may be dying.

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