Final Entry

I have a thing about being in the 2%. If everything is fine 98% of the time - well, this is not usually where you'll find me. And so began my trip home...

I was strapped into the 8 seater tiny plane to leave the island and we're gloriously roaring down the runway. The nose of the plane lifts off the ground and then - BAMB! A seagull-meets-propeller-chipper-shredder moment that leaves blood all over the engine and actually flings the leg of the bird so that it smacks into the window four inches from my face. One of my plane-mates had lived there 30 years and had never seen such a thing. I'd watched Hitchcock's The Birds last week...perhaps I'd tipped the scale. We were grounded while they found another plane. 

I missed my connection in Boston and thus got crammed into an extremely full aircraft two hours later next to a rather large nice fellow with a disturbingly reoccurring cough. I arrived in Pittsburgh, starving, only to discover my luggage had somehow failed to follow me. Seriously, two dear friends picked me up at the airport and had a cocktail waiting for me in the car - THAT is friendship. I reunited with my dog who thought I'd died, and somewhere around 11pm a lovely lady from the airline called to ask me for some more details as to the content of my suitcase for identification purposes. I literally said, "There's a soft sea green colored blanket, a long black silk nightgown, and military issue camo pants with chemical warfare grade lining." There was silence on the other end of the line.

My luggage was found and delivered yesterday, everything intact. I made curried shrimp with lentils and cilantro which the boys wolfed like they hadn't eaten in weeks, and it took me two hours at the market to restock the house. Tonight I sit looking through the pictures I took of shells and sunshine while the rain is turning to sleet outside of my window. We'll have snow by morning. Sometimes, things really do seem like a dream. 

I fell in love with Nantucket.

Sweaters

The air is thick with fog today and smells of the sea. Somehow it matches the melancholy settling in my chest. I'm packing and tomorrow will fly home - I've missed the boys and my zoo, but I fear I will miss this place more.


Jason and I are huge music people and stream Amazon music, specifically the Bassa Nova channel, often. There is a song in the que that we danced to every time it played the last few weeks - you can listen to it here. I will keep this song in my heart while I soar through the air back to Pittsburgh. Give me a day or two to clear the woebegone from my face. Thanksgiving is right around the corner; Jase will fly home and I've a turkey to brine and family coming in. Life has a way of nudging you along, no matter your gloomy feet.

Turn up the song, close your eyes, and think about nice sweaters.

Controlled Burn

When running away to an island in the off-season, prepare yourself for some time to think. Today the sky is a strange golden-grey and the rain patters against the windows as if playing music in a language I don't understand. I've done things here that I never do at home - like read the paper. Seriously. Morning light, coffee, and now I know everything about the park going in for children with disabilities, who's up in the local soccer stats, and the list of court appearances made me laugh. There was a lovely obituary for Robert Hellman and the letters to the editor were rather inciteful. An article titled "Why Fire?" caught my attention.

There has been a long tradition of 'fire ecology' on Nantucket dating back to the Native Americans who lived here previously and becoming dubbed 'controlled burning' in the 1980's. However, now after more science and study, the term used is 'prescribed fires.' Nantucket has open grasslands, heathlands, and middle moors, each of them needing an individual approach in land management. Sometimes the goal is to burn in a mosaic pattern to leave pockets of older growth; sometimes they need bare ground for new seeds.

I feel perhaps I am at a place of needing a 'prescribed fire.' Is there a doctor that could write that out for me? Maybe it's the time of year when everything is ramping up for the holidays; maybe it's just coming off a crazy busy month and missing my husband. Maybe it's having entirely too much undergrowth and deadwood in my life. I think I may need something to cut back the thicket and kill off some of the weeds. I could use a good clearing or some targeted, strategized combustion.

Do you think I might make some space...carve out a little elbow room? A meadow sounds nice.

Sundays

 "I think there's crème brulee in my belly button."

             "I think we're going to have to shower again."



This is why God made Sundays.

Storms

It was a morning dark enough that I slept till eight despite the skylight to heaven. Sheets of rain slid off the windows as Jason grilled Portuguese muffins (a new love) and eggs and I downed two cups of coffee buried beneath my favorite blanket on the couch listening to the Black Keys and Lana Del Ray. We'd just about given up hope when there was a break in the storm and we dashed for our shoes (and pants, I reminded my husband - he as a thing about saying, "I'm all ready to go...except pants." Whaaat?). We ran for the truck and made two loops to find parking and I must say, I do SO love some good thrift shopping! A stunning embroidered tablecloth long enough for our table back home, a lamp for the entryway, a butter dish, tiny frames for future paintings, a lantern for the Christmas tree, odds and bits and a lovely pearl-handled spoon for my sister. (it's tiny, but Jase picked it out just for you) By the third stop our shoes were soaked and we laughed like idiots and grabbed a bottle of wine for dinner and bundled it all inside.

Tonight we made Paella and toasted storms - those in life as well as within the skies. They can seem like the end of everything...but we weather, don't we? We plant our feet; we find our roots and stand our ground and push forward. Seasons come and will inevitably pass, experience tells us this.

Here is to the one before us now...

Colors of a Stormy Day

The storm blew in with slate skies and warm rain. After breakfast we dashed to the truck for another back-road (goat path? seriously, Jase sees an unpaved, two-tracked trail and that's where he wants to go, lol) tour of the island. Despite the weather, we still chased each other around the beach and I found a whole new collection of shells. My hair smells of salt and wind and I think I left an inch of sand in the truck. As we drove about, I kept asking Jason to stop so I could take pictures.The ocean is amazing, hands down, but the natural colors of this place are truly stunning.

Tonight we're grilling lamb and watching movies as the wind howls about the eves. Tomorrow there is an annual yard sale at the Saltmarsh we're planning on checking out - I am flying home but Jase will eventually be driving a TRUCK back to Pittsburgh...how much do you think I can fit in a truck??

Old Friends and Secret Gardens

When Jason drove to Nantucket, his truck was piled high. He's spending three seasons here and was taking bits and pieces from home to ward off the loneliness we both knew was inevitable. One of the things he asked for was one of my favorite paintings. I feel often about my work a bit like they're children; slight attachment and all that. I'm much relieved when such pieces sell to friends or people I can tell are kindred souls - I swear sometimes I feel I should use adoption papers! This particular painting spent all summer in the show I did at Space 1010, and then was only home quite briefly before being carefully packed up and tucked into the truck. I'd nearly forgotten what it looked like and then the night we arrived here, there it was.

This one is framed with a small light in the top. Jase leaves it lit all the time here, a beacon to show the way as he is waking hours before dawn every day. I love this painted forest; I swear I've walked down this path in another life as well as in my dreams, I can smell the moss on the stones.

Strange a bit to me, that is seems equally at home here as in our third floor library. Then again, where something is loved...





I have missed painting this week. However, I am well-armed with some stunning pictures of Nantucket and am already sketching for a series. The ocean may be a given, but truly, there is a "Secret Garden feel" to this place with its tall hedges, tangled shrubbery, and bewitching trees. The yard here is circular in shape and ringed with a solid wall of snarled greenery. I spend much time on the balcony in the sun, but were it warmer, we'd be picnicking our evenings away.