A Cold Love Affair

Imagine
     

what swirls of frost will cling
          

to the windows, what white lawns
              

I will look out on

- Mary Oliver, from the poem The Winter Wood Arrives

I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.”

–      – Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

I do an awful lot of thinking and dreaming about things in the past and the future — the timelessness of the rocks and hills — all the people who have existed there. I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape — the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn’t show.

– Andrew Wyeth

How did it happen that their lips came together? How does it happen that birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that the dawn whitens behind the stark shapes of trees on the quivering summit of the hill, a kiss and all was said. – Victor Hugo

Winter, after the war,

you lie back victorious

stretched and sundrenched

on your blanket blue and gold

If I lie with you

on your bed so soft,

I will surely die.

- me 

Snow Day

Finally! Snow as it should be. Our school is closed but the local schools are open. Poor kids. Why can't they let them play in the snow all day? This is what Canadian kids LIVE for! These are the days they'll remember. What could they possibly learn in school that's more valuable than what they'd learn lying in a snow bank and catching flakes on their tongues?

At this household we are celebrating.

The snow started yesterday, making travel from school to the hockey tournament painfully slow. We made it safely home, but by 9 pm the snow had stopped. The child went to bed, worried. Our nighttime prayer: Please please please let it snow. Let tomorrow be a snow day! 

At dawn it started again! The email arrived: no school! A miracle. 

The sky celebrated by glowing mauve and the fallen snow followed suit. 

Then the clouds closed in and the snow began to fall in earnest. We went out right away, of course.

The day turned to black and white with all its edges blurred. The trees at the park overlooking the lake reached out their arms to their old friend winter. 

As did we. And after a two hours of shoveling, we came in. Happy. We'll be back out for round two after lunch.

Going Home

Home. If there is a word around which my life swirls it is this one. Home spirals down from the outermost shell toward an unseen core, ending at a space so small and personal that it exists only inside us.

Home is not always easy to find. If what you seek is a home for your spirit or soul, you—paradoxically—first must have faith to find it. 

As for our physical homes, sometimes they are lost to us. We try to build new ones, but our minds go back to a certain home from the past. In dreams and daydreams we walk the halls, meeting pets and people long gone, but our loved ones are changed, somehow insubstantial—the houses, too, exist on a mysterious plane.

Yes, these shells are powerful places where we invest our energy, shaping the space to suit us, to keep us safe.

Here is a story that testifies to the place that home—as a place, idea, memory—held in one woman’s heart. It is a true story, as true as a story can be, because isn’t it also true that only fiction tells no lies?

One late afternoon not at all long ago, as January drew to a close, an 87-year-old woman in the first stages of Alzheimer’s disappeared from her seniors’ residence; no one saw her leave.

 She took a taxi to the home where she and her husband had raised their children. Those children are middle aged now; the husband, in a veterans’ hospital; the house, a vacant mansion at the end of a long drive locked behind rusted gates. Pillars flank the roadside entrance to the property; you can see where a plaque was once mounted bearing the estate’s name, “Lakewood.” 

The home is aptly named. The property is extensive, about three acres, almost unheard of in a city. It’s a heavily wooded lot perched on a cliff that overlooks another cliff that overlooks a lake that looks like the sea.

Two years ago the woman and her family sold the place to a developer. The property—prime real estate in a real-estate-ravenous city—is slated for subdivision. Acres of giant spruce and oak and maple trees that stand vigil over the now crumbling Georgian-style house will be replaced by three oversized McMansions destined and designed to overwhelm the semi-wild landscape. 

The place has a lonely feel. The road itself—Pine Ridge Road—is hushed. It is both wistful and gentle, sheltered by century-old trees but also buffeted by winds off the nearby bluffs. A paradoxical landscape.

The gracious old house is emblematic. Its days are numbered. It stands empty, green shutters askew or missing, grey stucco discoloured and damaged. It is barely visible through the bent iron fence, thick trees and bracken gone wild that screen it from the quiet road.

It is here at the old gate that the taxi leaves our lady, who, so the reporters report, is ”well dressed, carrying a purse and keys, makeup carefully applied.”  

Though she had slipped unseen from the nursing home, her arrival at Lakewood is witnessed. A man working at a nearby house approaches her offering help, but she tells him no, she is fine, this was her home for over 40 years and she just going for a visit. He returns to work.

A neighbour sees her, too, recognizes her as the former resident and watches as our lady limps down the long driveway to the front door of the abandoned house. When she reaches the door the neighbour turns away, assumes she is okay, thinks that perhaps she’s just back for a visit, and, after all, help isn’t far if she needs it. 

At 4:30 the next morning, our lady is found dead, lying right outside the faded green six-panel door—on the very threshold of her home.

Police say that though temperatures were as low as -10 C that night, she did not freeze to death, although the cold was a factor. They did not say what was the cause of death.

Her distraught son is interviewed. He talks of his own passion for the area, this bit of urban wilderness. A paradise, he calls it. He talks of his mother’s love for her home and the happy years the family shared there. Of her last journey to the house, he says: “I think it was her last wish. It was almost like a mission. Destiny was calling her and she was going home.”

You’ve guessed, perhaps, that I know the house. I do, but I did not know our lady, though I share her name—Kathleen.

Her road, Pine Ridge, is a favourite walk of mine, a short distance from my own home. Her house has always intrigued me, it is one-of-a-kind, a rare bit of yesterday in a city where shiny and new reigns supreme.

The geography of the ridge on which her home is so prominently positioned has a powerful energy. The massive stands of old trees, the cliff that’s just beyond, the lake so far below, and all the space it consumes across the horizon—sacred. I would dare say so. Hallowed ground.

Had it been my home on the ridge, where the wind whips off the bluffs only to be shushed, shushed by the pines, I would have returned. To those trees, I would go home, and I would not be alone.

Brave woman, wise woman. She lay down under the boughs. Though the door is closed to us, she crossed the threshold and is home at last. 

The magic leaf returns

As I searched for images for my next post, which will be up in the next few days, I came across these pics of the little leaf that would not fall.

I remember so well that solitary walk in the woods, yet it was at the end of September. Then October happened and all hell broke loose. Autumn and winter ended up being a challenging time.

I had thought that the fall would be my time again, with the child back at school, I thought I would write, blog, paint and so much more. Then IT happened. Upheaval. Stress. Mess.

These things happen in families. And while I fretted about things that were happening and were really quite unpleasant, and worried about things that could happen and would be much worse, little miracles like this floating leaf continued to unfold every day in the woods unseen.

Things are changing now though. Within a month, we'll know if the light we see at the proverbial end of the tunnel can be trusted.

I believe it can be. Something in the air has changed. A new season is on its way.

...and, hey, I got through the post without punning "I am turning a new leaf!" Well, I almost got through...some things never change, nor should they.

The Leaf Did Not Fall

Like a fool

I oppose the fundamental laws.
These aren't my rules, these
universal truths,
of space and time and distance.

As for gravity, I wonder,
when you dream
do you feel its force
or do you soar?

I stood in the woods
watching
and the leaf did not fall.

Summer and Fantastical Fictional Settings

Where have I been? Not here, that’s for sure. July and August without a post—shame on me! Blame summer.

Summer is too full of strawberries and cicadas, swimming and sunrises. Sitting at the computer simply doesn’t appeal. Summer is like adolescence, there’s no time to think and reflect; it’s a time for activity—for moving, running and dancing as fast as you possibly can.

This summer has been a summer of sunrises. The cottage we rented was ideally positioned to take in dawn in all its glory. I snapped pictures that I hope to use in watercolour practices as I try to learn technique.

 














The time at the cottage was the highlight of my summer. I hope I never forget it. It reminded me of what I love most about Ontario—water, trees, rock, sky. Softly rounded ancient shorelines. It reminded me of what feeds my soul.

We spent about four hours a day playing in the water!

We had time to share dinners with people we love.

I'd like to wake up by a quiet lake everyday, but for now I will study this sacred landscape in art and words. For now I will let its mysteries unfold internally and hopefully find expression in art.

Meanwhile I managed to find time to finish my first ever watercolour painting.

My crows. Not your typical watercolour, is it?

I could keep working on this piece but I must move on. There are a million things I would do differently. I am frustrated, as usual, by my lack of experience with technique and with my lack of skill/talent with composition. But despite all that, I'm proud of my daring. I’m proud I just did it, despite such ignorance. I'm proud, too, of the idea behind this piece. It is strange and personal and feels like a piece of my soul.

I've written before about how I don't like to appropriate First Nations' culture, yet, it seems to rise up in my subconscious and conscious alike. What can I do? It's powerful imagery, shared perhaps in a Jungian way through our collective unconscious. And as strange as this sounds, birds—crows, in particular—have been speaking to my soul since spring. I also had a very strange, archetypal dream about crows, which I'd forgotten about until cleaning up my desktop and finding a detailed note on the dream. It has inspired another crow painting that I hope to attempt this fall.

As far as this one is concerned, I feel it is, perhaps, my first real piece of art. The idea coalesced at a deep level, and now it is external, made real. I feel no need to give words to its meaning, to explain it in any way. It is enough that it exists. 

I know what the work means to me and that is enough. As for its meaning to others, I feel that if it appeals, if it speaks to someone else on a personal level, that's great, and if it doesn't, that's okay, too.

This is a breakthrough for me. Art for art's sake. And so, humble though my crow painting is, naive as it is, by Jove, I believe it is art!

I know this little guy enjoyed it. As soon as I took it outside to photograph, this beautiful creature alighted upon it, investigating thoroughly. I was honoured. And I don't believe he defecated on it or anything like that, so I guess that's a good sign.

The next exciting bit of creative news is that I have refined my idea of setting for the “little story” that I've been working on (or not working on!). Since I started the story, I've been equivocating on the fictional world that I needed to shape for my characters to live in and move through. Would it be modeled on the idealized English countryside that haunts my imagination thanks to the literature I love? I thought so, but elements of my own country kept creeping in. 

Then a visit to the Ontario towns of Fergus and Elora settled the issue. 

Elora is a sweet little town that, thanks to its preponderance of early 19th century stone architecture, reminds me a wee bit of St. Andrews in Scotland. Elora is younger, smaller and boasts no North Sea coastline (sigh), but its impressive gorge, where the Grand River rushes past 22-metre-high limestone cliffs, adds unexpected drama. 

Victoria Park in the centre of town offered a vantage point for a tired 11-year-old and his mom to quickly take in the exciting setting without actually hiking, which I would have loved to do had I been alone. 

The park was a surprise. You must walk through a lovely grove of cedars to get to the lookouts. As we entered, my son said, "I'm trying to feel them," and he put his hands out into the air in front of him. I was so happy because I once showed him how to do that and told him that sometimes I can feel the energy of trees. He didn't believe me then, but it stuck with him and he has remained open to the possibility, which is all I ask. 

Immediately upon entering their quiet space I was reminded that Ontario is a powerful setting that I know and it is as worthy of starring in fantastical fiction as is any copse or moor or rocky Welsh mountain. 

So this summer, I have recommitted to Ontario and feel more confident in setting my fictional world physically in rural Ontario (tweaked to include some massive mountains), but in a time that never existed. 

The truth is, I need to include the plants I know and love, like these cheeky cedars that insist on coupling in broad daylight and in public, too!

This landscape is witchy, sensual, soft, sad, romantic, mysterious, dramatic. Perfect for a work such as I'm trying to create.

I long to live closer to nature in a place much less paved than Toronto, but if I can't physically live a wilder life right now, if the city must be my home, then I shall let the wild live in my imagination and I will come to know it better through my art.