Tag Archives: Summer

The Art of Time and Space

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This summer has been rewarding for me, as the mark of the first summer that I spent time on a new hobby.  I think that my family probably wishes that I did not discover painting, but I do, indeed, love to paint.  I am but a hobby-ist right now, but I can put all my attention into a canvas, and definitely churn out a painting….  From start to finish, in about a month.  It is something I think that I didn’t know or understand as a child and student, even when I was being pre-occupied with the more “artsy” and “socially-oriented” subjects, like music, literature, and drama.  These already allowed me to express my more artistic self without much loss, without much missing.

So, as I attended the first class, nervously wondering if I had everything that I needed, I was surprised that Night School for Adult Learners, is very relaxed.  The place, usually a school during the day for teenagers, becomes a classroom full of art, color, instruction, and usable tools for the trade of painting.  The talk and conversation is surprisingly mature and it is as if we all followed the stream to this place of enlightenment.  Suddenly, a visit to the Art Gallery is much more interesting than the thoughts I had in the past while walking by all the talent.

One of the first subjects we tackled, was the issue, “What do you paint?”  We started listing things that we see all the time: portraits, still life, and landscapes.  Then, there were the more modern, and some would say, more experimental objects, like a lily flower, the foyer of a cafe, a pile of old shoes and boots, and surreal dreams.  Then, the big discussion, “What do you think abstract paintings are about?”  This took us a moment, but then, the thoughts came: irony, balance, color, strength, pride, honor, desire.  Armed, within the first twenty minutes of the class, with these beautiful words that describe painting and visual art, we became more certain that we could do this class.  That we knew how to be painters and visual artists.

This class took me into the summer.  I was very excited, as the end of June approached.  I dreamed of the beauty of our cottage just by the lake.  I dreamed of this beauty with the imagination of someone unsullied by failure or disappointment.  I took time to “picture” the scene, and I started imagining the mixing of paint, to create color, and then, the big decision, should I create texture by adding a gel medium to my paints?  To build leaves of grass that could stand up, and ridges into the wood used to build the house….  I dreamed, and I dreamed.

Then, the first weekend at the cottage arrived.  I packed everything I needed into the car.  Easel, canvas, palette, brushes, and paint.  Everything, including my husband and my children, arrived safely….  I was ready to just jump into my painting clothes and start!  We use our cottage all year round, so there was no need to undo anything and set anything up….  I started to move all my material and instruments out to the back sun room where there is a perfect view of the backyard leading down to the lake.  The sun was still out upon our arrival, and I stood there a moment, deep breathing the scene inside.

It is the most precious moment I have of the this particular view.  To walk into a strength of beauty after a long ride in the car is utterly amazing.  It is like taking that first deep breath on the morning after a big snowfall.  My breath rushes down, and I forget that I breathe.

So, being flexible in work, not only did I have weekends to spend absorbed by my new hobby, I spent up to a week, one week this summer, just lost in painting and relaxing by the small piece of space that most feels like home.  It has been rewarding.  I may not be able to paint the Mona Lisa, but I am able to capture that beauty, that she is associated with.

We have also partly re-decorated the cottage walls.  Taking down anonymous paintings of terrestrial beauty, to be replaced by my own exploration of beauty and meaning.  I am looking forward to the start of the night classes again.  I am already planning what it is I will paint.  Perhaps, still life, this time.  I would want to try to get a painting finished before the fruit rots and the flowers wilt.

I think about ironic things too.  If I can get enough of my paintings together, I would want to have a gallery show, somewhat along the lines of Virginia Woolf‘s style of publishing.  I would have a “Vanity Show,” where my work would be displayed only for as long as I could rent the space, rather than as one of the Gallery’s standard list of artists.  And suddenly, I could find people who could like my work.  Just like writers want to be read, so, visual artists want to be seen.

I am spending the last week of summer trying to title my two paintings.  I have a million titles, but it is hard for me to find a title I love.  And, very silly of me, I think I am purposely taking all this time, to see if I can come up with as many suitable titles as I can.

And so, as I imagine one day being able to paint the thrill of riding in a convertible down the highway, just like I imagined painting the quiet beauty and strength of a view of the lake, I like to imagine that I can do it.

My Memory of the Most Fun

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The most fun I have ever had was a very, very long time ago.  We were at the theme park, not for the first time that summer… probably it was our third or fourth time there.  The fun was that I had the whole map of the park in my head… Not just where the front entrance was of where the Smurf Village was… but detailed locations of each ride and the direction of the water rides and the baby rides too.  It was amazing, to command such personal power.  I felt I could go anywhere, without feeling like I was guessing and getting myself lost.

I still remember that day.  I traveled the whole park and had fun knowing where I was going to meet up with so-and-so, or him, or her.  We did not have cells phones, and no one actually bought walkie-talkies.  After playing with toys like connected phones, batteried walkie-talkies, and anything as fun and futuristic, we knew the real thing was worth waiting for.  So, in this dark age, we had our maps, our watches to tell time, and the promise to be back at the main gates, if, God forbid, we were to get lost.

What mad this “routine day at the park” the most fun, was that our parents let us run free.  Nowadays, with cell phones, there is no way to recreate the “free feeling” coupled with the “a sense of fear and excitement” from the possibility of becoming lost and never found again except as a chopped up corpse at the back of the theme park where a swampy forest grew.

The real fun, of course, was being out of sight and getting on the “best” rides, again and again, if we were so enamored.  We could also buy all the funnel cakes with double ice cream and strawberry sauce with nuts and pieces of chocolate cookies as well… Without our parents warning that we would never be able to eat dinner.  For some reason, this was before my first job (I got one as soon as I could lawfully be paid), and I think my mom was generous on this day.  So, with what I thought was enough money to ransom a mouse from a cat, I had fun all day…  Getting lost, buying everything I wanted, and staying until the sky got dark and the crickets and the stars came out.

I feel lucky that I have a memory of fun that is actually officially sanctioned by adults and by the law.  I now look for fun things with a mind much more attentive to how slow things go rather than how fast things go.  I wander the liquor stores to find “Vintage” rather than “50 Proof.”  I pay money to watch athletes, professional acrobats, and other people pushing the limits of living, so that I can laugh at them.  And sometimes, the laughs don’t come until the final score is made.

So,  as the height of summer approaches, I am going to slowly sit in my Muskoka Chair by the lake, and sip a cocktail that I hand make from several bottles of beer and liquor, and enjoy the fact that it will take the sun several hours to set. I won’t go back into the cottage until I hear the lonely, forlorn, cry of the loon for its mate.

Official Welcome to Summer!

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The pavement was hot this afternoon, radiating heat from its black asphalt top, making the day very humid.  We were in suburbia where all roads are big, wide, and long.  The buildings lining the sides of the “highway-like” main streets were heated as well.  It was one large, integrated, oven.  I couldn’t wait to get out of the parking lot and into the air-conditioned mall, and coming out, I couldn’t wait to get into the car and turn on the energy-sucking air-conditioning as well.  What made this situation overbearing was the constant sunshine.  It is much pleasanter on a beach,  in this circumstance, as I would not be covered in clothes.  I would have the sunscreen, a good pair of sunglasses, and possibly a movable umbrella to park over top of my movable beach chair.  (And probably, I would get the chance to get drunk if I had bought something all-inclusive!)  In any case, today’s weather was a welcome start to the summer season.

I was thinking only good thoughts.  And, who wouldn’t if they had such nice weather?  The sales were on in the shops, and having my cell phone with me, made me relax because I wasn’t anxious about missing the links to all the work happening.

So, my mind also seems to speed in this good weather.  I think fast, sometimes, furious thoughts.  “Furious” as in fast with a tail of heat that is pleasant, blazing an idea or chasing a laugh.  It is easy to think from  one thing to another.  I could only laugh, all afternoon.  This made me a little looser with my pocketbook, and I let myself make many dollar sale purchases.

I looked forward to getting home, as I had this itch again.  This itch to put my ideas in to an essay, so that I have more than just a memory of sunshine and beaches.

The fun thing about the four seasons, is that we are willing to suffer a lot, in order to enjoy the best weather.  Even if the best weather is actually here for less than a quarter of the year.  We put all this tolerance, all this thought forward, all this endurance, into our hearts and minds, so that the best weather is truly as it is…  As it truly exists.  We have no dispute.

And back home, doing the usual things (outside it is still “unusually” hot and sunny… compared to just one week ago), doing the usual things also seems easier and more fun to do.  It is not, something that will take two hours….  It is something that will splish splash, and be all clean, again, with no idea where the time went!  So, I will do the laundry, and I will make an easy dinner on the grill.  Then we will oh so comfortably and oh so easily fall asleep tonight.  I know in the morning, because I got the activity and I didn’t stress out, and I was relaxed, with rest and confidence in the world, that I will be very well-rested.  I am looking forward to having times like these more often.  I am hoping that it is not just this time of year when I will have times like these.  I have hope.

The coming global warming trend does trouble me.  I worry that good things will be harder to find and that it will take more money to find any of it.  I am always afraid of the future, as what I have now is only sufficient for now, and not another fifty years.  I am part of a group of people where great change happened to us all very very quickly in a short span of time.  There is no prediction possible, time-wise, or product wise… or if there will even be success.  I am always in some sort of “school.”  It is a place I am familiar with, with experts, professionals, and peers.  We see each other often and we give ourselves projects, trying to get people interested in our ideas and creations.

So, now, I relax.  The good sunny weather is a Godsend.  It helps my mood, and it makes living the minutia of every day, something pleasant.  I play a little more in the sun.  I spend more time doing productive work, with more of a smile on my face. I feel this smile, as my heart is as light as the day is.  I remember to thank people more often, and I remember to appreciate the little things… the minutia. So, this is my official welcome to summer.   And, this year, I am looking toward a good year.  A year of feeling happy and successful.  Ola!

My Favorite Friends

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Daisies have white petals and yellow centres.  Much like the Cadbury Eggs, a filling of white and yellow surrounded by chocolate.

The field and the hill are scattered with them, growing in small bunches, and, swaying in the wind.  They are the most beautiful weed, and if you encourage them, they will cover the lawn.

When this happened in our backyard, in the summer, I stood with a lollipop in my mouth, sucking, and gazing at all the daisies.  I felt as if I had a daisy in my mouth, its sweetness filling and savoured.

I remember one day, because I was wearing my favourite dress–a baby pink, A-line flare.  I lobed that if I crouched down my dress would spread outward and cover my feet.  I looked like a pink bell.  I spent those days, in my pink bell dress, laughing.

The days were always sunny, and warm, but not too hot and humid.  I also remember because the freezies we had didn’t melt and become sugary water in blue, purple, pink, or yellow, those colours of the rainbow that taste like colours of the rainbow.  Now, in these summers, water droplets cover the length of the long freezie and make holding and eating one a slippery mess.  I love the cool blueberry in my mouth, and the quite cool sensation of holding something frozen, but keeping dry.  Those days, were a long time ago, and the earth has made so many rotations that it has probably rotated out of that particular orbit.  Alas…. Time changes everything!

One day, many years later, when I didn’t wear the pink dress any more, my boyfriend came over to our house.  It was an ordinary day, except that it would be the first time he came to our house.  I was excited, as he had casually just called on the telephone and said he would be riding his bicycle over and would be arriving in the next half hour.

It was summer, and I was quickly …  maybe I was in a panic….  I was trying to decide if I should wear something a little more suited to seeing my boyfriend, who was quite brand new at the time.  When he had called I was lounging around in an old pair of shorts and just any old t-shirt.  Part of my consideration was what we would be doing.  If we were going to go out for a walk in the ravine….  Then I wouldn’t really have to change into anything “nicer.”  I was not exactly making enough money to purchase all sorts of hiking gear, so, wearing any old pair of shorts and an old pair of sneakers would probably be all I needed.

Being the guy that he was, and probably still is, now, he arrived in twenty minutes.  He rang the door bell, and i rushed to open the door.  I had not changed…  as I just immediately made the decision that I didn’t want my little brother and sister bugging us.  He came in, and had a pop and sat and talked with all of us.  I was thinking constantly of taking off without my little tow-alongs.  My mother expected me to looke after my siblings during the summer holidays sine they were younger, but, they could survive being left alone for an hour without the supervision….  Not that I was especially responsible at the time.

We did take off not long after the pop was finished.  I asked, quite suddenly during a lull in the conversation, whether my boyfriend wanted to go to the river in the ravine with me?  My brother and sister were quick this time…  and I was grateful…..  my boyfriend immediately said quite excitedly that we should go, while my sister and brother said that they’d stay at home.  I didn’t have to be the one who said they couldn’t go.

The ravine and the river were not far away…  within two minutes we could be in a forest of trees and deep into a woodchip, pine needle floor that would lead to a small river that we could follow far, and even get lost in.

My boyfriend had never been to this part of  “Green Space” within the city, and I felt almost lost, surprisingly, as I began to think about how to show him around it.  He made it easy, however, keeping up an easy flow of conversation.  He never once asked where we were going….  As apparently, my statement from the beginning about going into the ravine and finding the river was enough for him.  This made me believe that just going to the river was enough.

There were several places that we could stand at right beside the river, and several places where the river would become shallow enough that standing on the edge we could reach our hands in and literally touch the sandy bottom of the stream. This is where we stopped and stood looking at everything surrounding us.  A few times, my boyfriend picked up a stone and skipped it across the water.  Sometimes it went far enough to go beyond just the middle of the stream.  this was the first time I had seen someone, in the flesh, do the skipping stone across the water.  It was impressive, and I felt in awe of my boyfriend.  I had thought, always, that it was just movie magic, but apparently, anyone could learn how to do it.

As we stood longer at the side of the stream, we began to notice the things just in the water.  Surprisingly, there were schools and schools of tiny fish.  They were silvery, and tiny and darted, faster than the striking of lightening, everywhere.  As soon as I saw them, I was utterly delighted.  I had never thought it possible that there would be life inside the tiny river in the ravine.  It did not seem wild enough to support any type of life.  Where would all the food come  from?

We stood looking down at them, in awe.  Suddenly, my boyfriend declared that they were definitely guppies.  Before this, I had only seen guppies in the pet store.  The ravine river was murky, from the sandy bottom and the slowness of the water which encouraged the water to be become murky with decomposing foliage.  I was very impressed.

We laughed, at the darting fish.  A few times my boyfriend put his hand and fingers in to cause the guppies to suddenly change direction, in an attempt to pick up one of the guppies, but they were incredibly fast.  It was exciting to see the quickness of silver which, given the sunlight, made a quick “spark” with the sudden turn the fish made.

As we grew tired, slowly, we suggested to each other, as we stood up again, by the side of the river, that we should go home.  My boyfriend dried his hands on his pants, and we turned around and started to head home.  This time I  did not feel myself looking everywhere in a scattered manner, to try to find something to say or to do.  I felt that my boyfriend and I had had a happy afternoon.  As we slowly walked, by boyfriend reached for my hand, and we held hands, lightly, walking without intention, out of the ravine.

We were holding hands, me in complete contentment and thinking that I had a cool boyfriend, when he let go suddenly, and running towards some thicket of bushes and trees, he picked a bunch of daisies, and offered them to me.  I was surprised by his gesture and accused him of vandalism and thievery of public property, causing the both of us to laugh.  I accepted his bunch of daisies anyway, reminding him that I had a backyard full of them at home already.

We were not a couple for more than a year-and-a-half, and i have not seen him since, but this particular afternoon is an afternoon I will forever remember, it being so pleasant, the sun being up, the way things worked without effort, and the way I didn’t feel as if I was always looking at the future and wondering if there would be future, given the sad circumstances.

I am someone who saves the things I love.  And that afternoon is saved, with the daisies and the silvery guppies.  And the memory of a kind boyfriend who made being a teenager exciting, and something that felt safe and full of being in love.