The Four Seasons ... Around Here, Anyway

With the solstice this past week, I got to thinking about the seasons--about when and what they really are ... at least in these parts!

Everything from October 1 to December 31 is Christmas.  All the holiday hoop-la including finding great yucky spider decorations all over the place since people mistakenly think they're appropriate for Hallowe'en.  Having to hear Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Winter Wonderland wherever you go.  Figuring out gifts once again (or trying for no-gifts-this-year) and who-goes-where for holiday dinners.  And then sliding down into winter as the sun seems to set around 4:00, especially after the time change.  The garden gets put to bed--the hoses brought in, outdoor faucets drained, garden furniture and flower pots tucked into the garage.  The car gets winterized and its ice-deflecting wipers put on ... and I stick the car's snow shovel and kitty litter in back, not to take them out again until April.  (The litter adds traction if I get stuck.)

January and February is The Brutal Time.  Icy sidewalks that you have to treat with enormous respect.  Blizzards.  Deep penetrating cold.  No making any appointments or lunch dates without the disclaimer "I'm not coming if it's snowing."  (Which it often is.)  The smell of the oil furnace permeating the house.  Seeing that the front walk is cleared for the postman, especially after the town plow comes along filling in what I just shoveled.  Taking drops of flower essences to treat Seasonal Affective Disorder.  The constant thought that I really should live someplace sunny and warm if it was also affordable.

March - May is The Time to Pick Yourself Up Again.  Repair any winter damages.  Get tax stuff organized.  Do spring clean-up in the garden--move downed limbs, rake leaves, sticks, pine cones.  Figure when to do errands so that I can make a left-hand turn into town without encountering the two rush hours plus parents off-loading and loading their school kids.  And, just generally, feel that things are getting a little bit back to normal after that long haul!

June - September is The Happy Time ... which, incidentally, whizzes by. One day it's Memorial Day. Then a week or two later it's Labor Day.  It's also Road and Bridge Construction Time.  And the Noisy Season with the sound of power mowers echoing around town as well as hundreds of motorcycles on their way to (and then from) Motorcycle Week in New Hampshire.  It's the time to actually make viable dates to see friends ... to go to weekly farmers markets and tag sales (also called yard sales) ... to eat fresh strawberries, lettuce, tomatoes ... even sit in a back yard with a glass of wine and chat with friends, neighbors, family.  In other words, it's The Normal Time ... Time to Get Back to Business.  It's also the time for humidity, thunderstorms, and occasional excessive heat when you need to be sure to carry a sweater with you to counter too-cold air conditioning.

Except, sorry to say, there's one drawback to summer which the man who runs the local wine store recently reminded me about.  When it finally arrives, the days immediately start to get shorter as we then slide back down toward winter.  And after working so hard to get here!

Painting: Both Sides and the Middle

Rice Farm Road in Autumn 

(Note:  My next posting will be in two weeks, June 27th.)


During the years when I was doing a lot of painting, I found myself applying a technique which I will describe briefly ... and offer to any of you who might want to try it.  It's really quite simple ... and, I found, especially good with landscape though certainly not limited to that.

Simply, use different colors (or different shading) on the right and left sides of your painting.  Unless you're really looking for it, you don't even notice it since it can blend in so well, your eye accepts the different colors as a gradation of light.  Then, in the middle, you can also add what I like to call "a jewel"--a warm color or something a bit mysterious to draw the eye in.  (Even a good warm alizarin crimson for shadowing works well.)  Of course, there's also the compositional technique of taking the eye into the center of the work with a road or path.

Peach Orchard 
 Here, the left side has cooler tones than the right ...
with a warm orange "jewel" in the very center.

Last Light
 Yes, the composition puts the green trees in the middle,
but off behind them, I've added another bright orange.

I've posted some of these paintings before, but I include them again to illustrate my point.  Try this out and see what you think.  I've always thought it added just a little more interest, a little more oomph!

(Except for the final painting, a watercolor, these are all oils.)

October Pond

January Hillside
The "jewel" here is the lemon yellow in the sky as well as the deeper rust in the middle foreground trees.  Again, left- and right-hand colors differ.

Blue Trees
 The left/right variable is very apparent here.

Winter Along Kipling Road

West Hill Road 
  The "jewel" here is a lightening of the road's purple foreground shadows into pink shadows in the distance
where the eye then sees an aqua tint behind the far trees.
The left side colors emphasize purple and orange; the right green and yellow.

Studies

"Harmful to Elderly Hearts"
"Severe Depression"
"Tell Grandpa to leave that glass of wine alone."

Just as we've become Consumers rather than Citizens (in the parlance of the times), doesn't it seem as if we've also become Objects of Study?  Watch out for this; watch out for that. By now, I've got things pretty well figured out for myself and doubt I'm going to be swayed by a study.  After all, wouldn't it be more fun to die after having been on a spree than after having spent years in some nursing facility.  I don't want to go THAT way.  Make it quick and snappy.  After a high on the town ... or rafting down the Colorado.  But don't keep me going because of some study until I'm so frail I can barely move.

And while we're on the subject, what about letting kids enjoy themselves in a park where they can climb trees and drive nails through pieces of wood just for the fun of it.  (As in Tokyo.)  What about not monitoring them quite so much.  I just heard a radio program about children going off to summer camp.  One week at this camp, then home.  Another week at that camp, then home.  When it was better for the child to have four weeks at one camp, do some bonding, and come out with some memorable experiences rather than break the time up so that the parents could hear everything that had been going on and give their approval or disapproval.

It's true, we lived in a nurturing village, but I know when our daughter was growing, my husband once said that we weren't afraid for her because we didn't have television and so didn't have all that fear drummed into us.  We tended to give her a good degree of freedom and let her figure things out.  And the product that we got was truly inspiring ... a joy and treasure of a person, filled with common sense ... someone who is now adventurous and creative.

So my hope is that we can add some fun and humor to our life.  I remember my mother once said she'd rather die than not have butter on her baked potato.  And in France, you see slim, trim women at outdoor cafes digging into ice cream sundaes ... eating with a sense of celebration rather than a sense of guilt.  And then there's that park in Tokyo where children are allowed to take a few risks.  I read about it in a recent book by Amy Fusselman--Savage Park, A Meditation on Play, Space, and Risk for Americans Who Are Nervous, Distracted, and Afraid to Die.  

Marie Kondo's Magic

I recently bought a book because I liked the title and thought it might offer some good downsizing suggestions.  How to get rid of things more easily ... without taking a long time doing it or feeling bad about tossing something out.  I soon discovered that the book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, the Japanese art of decluttering and organizing, was a best seller in Japan and the author, Marie Kondo, an organizational consultant, something of a phenomenon.  I was soon intrigued.

I'm pretty good at keeping things tidied.  I'm also good at going through everything fairly regularly and tossing out.  I call it doing my "room-by-room" thing.  I start in the upstairs corner room, work there until I'm finished, go on to the next room, the next, etc.  Fortunately, I have a place where I can temporarily stash things I no longer want.  When the whole process is over (and this can take days), I then recheck the give-away stash, usually retrieving an item or two.  Then disperse the rest.

But I got some inspiration from Marie Kondo's book, as well.  Her thesis is to take everything that you own, hold it, and see if it produces a spark of joy.  If not, get rid of it.  Don't give it to anyone you know.  Throw it out.  Or give it to a second-hand place.  Start with clothes.  Then do books, papers, miscellaneous items, and finally mementos.  Thank what you get rid of.  Feel the importance of where it was in your life.  Then release that and let it go on its way.

She also advises something my family and I used to do regularly.  We'd say goodbye to the house when leaving and hello when returning.  The house always felt like a great part of our family--and did, even more so, with that little ritual.  As Marie says, think of (and thank) your home for providing you and your belongings with shelter.

There's more, but I'll let you discover her words for yourself.  I found that the book started in a rather sweet, simple fashion and gathered momentum as it went along.

Bird Tales

Some time ago, an ornithologist on NPR's "The Diane Rehm Show" related a couple of true tales.

The first concerned crows in Japan (those very clever birds) who loved walnuts but couldn't break their shells so dropped them in front of cars waiting at red lights, then fed on them after the cars had run over them.

The ornithologist also spoke of mockingbirds in South Carolina who could still sing the song of a now-extinct bird, exciting bird-lovers who, on hearing it, thought the bird was not extinct after all.

And then there were parrots in some far-off country who were still speaking a few words of now-extinct languages which, of course, was an aid to various linguists.

One of my favorite bird/animal tales found in my reading concerns the Canadian painter, Emily Carr, a friend of the Group of Seven and a great animal lover, who'd once tamed a wild vulture to walk to heel and who gathered various pets about her including a rat (Susie), a monkey (Woo), and a parrot.  As the story goes, once when she was out and the phone rang, Woo opened the parrot's cage, then picked up the phone and handed it to him.

"Hello," the parrot said into the mouthpiece.

"Is Miss Carr there?" the caller asked.

"And who else?" said the parrot.  "Speak up, speak up."

The caller spoke louder and the parrot persisted.  "Speak up, speak up."

I don't know how long this carried on but Woo, the monkey, soon hung up the phone.  It's such a tidy tale, you have to laugh!

This is just one of her books

As an aside, I'd like to recommend Emily Carr's writings in the form of journals, stories, essays, memories--a collection of four books that I found splendid.  She's such a unique and honest individual, it's a pleasure to read her.  Considered Canada's most famous woman painter, she lived from 1871 to 1945, mostly in British Columbia with study in England and France.  She particularly loved painting mystery trees deep in forests.  And subjects related to the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest, especially Vancouver Island since she spent most of her life in the city of Victoria.

These four books are:

The House of All Sorts
Growing Pains:  An Autobiography
The Heart of a Peacock
Hundreds and Thousands:  The Journals of an Artist.

Around Here

One of our dirt roads

I get out in my car a lot. Sometimes just to go for what I call a meandering drive.  No destination.  Just a chance to clear my head and take in some back road country greenery.  Many of the roads around here are dirt.  Since they become the mother of muddy roads in early spring, I avoid them in March and April.  But from May on, they're good as gold.  And better even than the paved ones with their "Rough Road" warnings because of all the potholes that, yes, do get filled in, of a fashion, but that still make you rattle as you drive over them.

So I've discovered some things about the drivers around here.  Often, if you're waiting to make a left turn, the oncoming cars can be very patient, stop, or slow down as they flash their lights, signaling you to turn.  So you smile and reply with the Thank You Wave.  But equally often, those waiting to turn onto a trafficked road will dash out smack in front of you, barely missing you.

And then, though cars should stop for pedestrians if they're in a cross-walk, you can guess that they often don't.  When a car does stop, the pedestrian gives a little wave.  A "Thank you for letting me cross without running over me."  It reminds me of when I was in San Francisco once, wanting to cross busy Van Ness Avenue.  I had no more than gotten to the cross-walk than, as if by magic, ALL the cars stopped for me.  I felt like saying, "It's okay, guys, I'll wait my turn."  But, no, they were saying, "It's the law here; we have to stop for you so you go right on ahead."  Well, it's the law here, too, but drivers can be oblivious.

Then, another thing.  Different subject.  A couple of days ago as I was driving along a main street, I passed a man in his pajamas walking his dog.  Or people dress as if their day's main chore is to clean out the garage or change their car's oil ... which it very well may be.  Or men on bicycles wear too-low trousers.  Then there's the woman with a short skirt over her long night-gown.  It made me want to write a whole posting about the missing art of Taking Pride in One's Appearance ... which seems to rank maybe #103 on a scale of the fifty most important things in one's life.  When you do see people nicely dressed, you have to guess they're lawyers or tourists from foreign parts.  There, got that off my chest.

Downsizing

How's this for downsizing!

With "downsizing" being the operative word these days, especially in my age group, I've been looking for another house to buy for a long time but have only come up with two possibilities--each of which would have required a contingency clause:  I buy yours when I sell mine. Neither seller would, in fact, accept that ... and my realtor tells me that (since I'm not going to do a mortgage) I need to sell first, move into a temporary rental, then find something, then move again.  And I counter with:  moving once is bad enough but moving twice?!  (All of you in my age group will know how much energy we've got for that sort of thing!)

Nonetheless, feeling that I need to be responsible for the years ahead, I want to go from what is basically a three-story house counting the cellar (with washer/dryer, garage) to something on one level. But it's not a given that, once moved, I'll find a suitable place very soon--something easier, less expensive to maintain. Plus something with a garage--no having to dig the car out in the winter to go anyplace.  Nor can it be on one of our many dirt roads--which turn into mud pits for a couple of months each spring.  I'm not about to get stuck off in some backwoods spot, especially since cell phones often don't work there.  (One friend recently said that in their entire house, they have one chair upstairs where they can get reception.)

A lot of the problem is that the town, which is not very big, is old with a limited choice.  Either the houses are enormous (three-story Victorian heat guzzlers), the same size I have now, or just not for me.  And then new single levels are being rented, not sold, and all for high prices.

But I've long since started the downsizing part, going through everything I own more than once, putting piles in two yard sales, our "experienced goods" store, used bookstore, and local dump.  I've taken sheets of music to the music school, books to two libraries, and various things to friends and neighbors.

With all this behind me, I've now called my realtor to come and tell me what she thinks my house will sell for.  So, in preparation for her visit, I've been spiffing things up.  I've gotten the roof problem repaired and front entryway ceiling re-plastered after that ice dam leakage this winter.  I've had all the windows washed.  The yard raked for its spring clean-up.  The outdoor furniture and pots brought out.  I've cleaned up the cellar. Planted pansies. Tidied and uncluttered the house.  Just before she comes, I'll set out a bouquet or two of tulips.

Then we'll just see what happens.