In the liminal space between summer and fall, in the margin between darkness and dawn, I like to get up and go to the open window. The night crickets and frog sounds are combined with the early bird sounds. The air has a bit of cool damp attached to it. The traffic is still. I imagine all the drivers asleep.
Sometimes in that space I will go out to the hammock on the porch. I think there must be something like womb memory that overtakes me in the hammock because once in it, I immediately fall into a thick and healing sleep.
Some mornings, waking up early, closer to fall, I open the windows and the air that enters the house has a bit of chill to it– mountain stream chill. This time it’s just past the full moon. Last night the moon rose late, and was the color of a persimmon. Getting up, there were forty shades of darkness in the landscape, but my attention was grabbed by the white distorted disks of flowers on the Rose of Sharon, floating like apparitions in the darkness.
I took the time to name the colors around the shrub. The distant trees were black, the land black-yellow-green, the near trees black-turquoise. To make sure I seized that moment, without turning on any lights, I climbed into a hot bath in the dark and watched the light change toward dawn, sitting there.
Looking through some old drawings in my journal the other day I came across a little sketch I did after sleeping on the sugar beach of a five acre atoll in the Caribbean. Full moon. Huge palms casting deep shadows. Bright sand. I wrapped myself in a white sheet which the wind played with like a sail, like the distorted disks of the Rose of Sharon, dancing in the darkness.
Today was the last day of my summer vacation. I wanted to mark it with some appropriate ritual. After a summer of hard work and focus, I wanted to spend at least one day in relaxed reverie deep in the woods. My friends Suzi and Dick had told me they knew of a hidden waterfall, tucked away in the remotest parts of a state park, so I asked them if we could spend the day there together.
To their credit, Suzi and Dick know how to live. They immediately embraced the idea of spending a Tuesday in the woods with me. They offered to pack a picnic and a bottle of wine and to show me their hidden treasure. It’s hard for me to leave my work ethic behind, so I had both watercolor paper and a canvas to carry into the woods. Dick led the way. We walked through a creek at a couple of places, and landed at the top of a waterfall. The woods were so old and lovely that the forest floor was covered simply with a carpet of fallen leaves, lush mosses and mushrooms in dozens of shapes and colors. There were several clear paths one could use to find the way to the bottom of the falls.
We chose a big table rock in the middle of the creek to spread a towel on. We ate the wonderful picnic of summer salads and fruits and enjoyed the bottle of wine. We washed away the stickiness and humidity of the outside world in the cool stream, and after lunch settled in for napping, reading, writing and painting. Sometimes the sun would shine and the water would sparkle, its transient patterns exposed for a moment. Other times a cloud would cover us and the woods would take on a moody feeling.
At this moment in my life I’m trying to decide what I’m supposed to be painting– what is the message that should arrive from my brush? Is what I’m saying important or merely what everyone expects? Am I digging deep enough and doing the hard work of making art? In the woods I quit thinking and was only struck by the true existence of Eden. I knew I wanted to express the motion of the water, from left to right, leaping over stones, turning sharply, bouncing light. I wanted to show the solidity and the three dimensionality of the boulders. I didn’t care if it was right or important to anyone else, or profound, or if it won me recognition. I only wanted to connect to it, and reexpress it. I wanted to dance with that creek and play on those rocks, and remember this day all winter, and maybe all my life.
