Winter Light

 

A wit could say that a sunrise is a rise is a rise, but the distinction is not in the sun, which is constantly round and white. It's what happens in between here and there that makes the performance. Our atmosphere in winter has tendencies to cold and clarity that orchestrate brilliant dawn skies.Cape Ann's maritime position usually buffers us from continental cold. But if frigid winds prevail our atmospheric clarity goes up in 'sea smoke.' Mists may form as relatively warm ocean evaporation condenses in contact with super-cold air.

Early morning sun imparts its low-angled warmth to a quarry stone. The ice, still in shadow, appears violet.

Toward midday sunlight whitens as it travels through less atmosphere from an overhead position. The granite cools in appearance. 

The spare qualities of light and landscape in winter accentuate forms. Cold dry air sharpens visibility. Details and patterns come into crisp focus.

By late afternoon the light mellows as it once again traverses a greater atmospheric distance close to the horizon. Colors come back to life.

Softer evening light enhances a wide range of tonal patterns. An apron of ice contributes to the February illumination.

A month earlier I recorded an entirely different scene from the same spot, without the ice and under a different sky.

Each moment reflects its own atmospheric personality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winter Color

Color discoveries expand a winter outing with a treasure hunt. Your eye happily collects novelties among the monotones of snow, rock, and 'barren' moors.

A resilient pair of oak leaves challenges you to identify their hue. Snow reflects soft light from all angles for careful consideration of brown. But wait, is there mahogany there? Ecru?

Old cherry trees along the trail develop chocolate bark that may have inspired Tucks and Nichols, the local candy-making rivals. Each tree's wounds and twisted trunk record a lifetime battle with the elements. Lichens add decor at no cost to the host.

Other lichens colonize granite surfaces perhaps not so innocently. They contribute to the decomposition that will ultimately turn the rock into soil. Meanwhile they complement an array of earth tones in the minerals. Melting snow brightens the hues.

A nearby patch of blueberries glows in the early light. Their fullest (visual) enjoyment requires your presence at a favorable moment of temperature, moisture, sunlight and atmosphere.

Turning the camera upward reveals the source of optimal optical conditions, cumulus clouds and a cerulean sky above an evergreen tree.

A first glance at the quarry rim says "gray." Arresting streaks of snow initially overpower, then alert us to complexities in the granite pigments. Greens, reds, and blues interplay in a patina like excavated pewter.

At  day's end golden light revises its palette on a quarry wall. Wholeness gathers the scene, absorbing abstracted details into stillness.

Winter Welcome

There's a feeling about the early morning after a snowy night akin to being the first kid downstairs on Christmas day, surveying the gifts still neatly wrapped. Mysterious business had gone on while you slept. An eerie mise en place waited as yet undisturbed.

The light, the land, the snow compose a world in platinum. None of them holds dominion. They commingle to a new and different thing: a seasonal alchemy. Proceeding down the trail I'm reluctant to look back at the trace of first footprints in the snow.

The trail opens to stillness. Snow mixes with air, earth and water to dissolve the edges of each. The landscape detaches from familiar moorings to float on its own horizon.

Past  the quarry the ocean sloshes contentedly. It's its own thermodynamic self, replenished by snow-melt, sculpting lines on the shore according to the laws of watery reunion.

The winter ocean summons another face: colorful, energetic, uncompromising. All you can do is nod and smile respectfully. Rough riders take their chances for thrills or hard-earned professions. Landlubbers admire untamed beauty.

On the fresh water side of the ledges ice reflects extra light up onto the quarry walls. The granite is never so glowing as in winter.

It's a time of year for noticing little satisfactions that might be shrouded by foliage the rest of the year, or shouted down by boisterous colors. Shadows suggest origin stories to ponder. Highlights suffuse surfaces with tints warmer than the air.

What you thought you knew must be reconsidered, stretched, expanded. Nature takes an encore in winter.

If  subtleties have lulled or escaped you, Nature may close the day with a flourish to counteract seasonal affective disorder. Not the butterscotch light of August, but a splendid sky  unique to winter design.

Audrey's Miracle Christmas

The promise of meeting four-month old Audrey sparked our holiday plans. She'd be arriving from Indianapolis with her family for their traditional post-Christmas visit, capped by First Night in Rockport.

 



When Audrey caught a respiratory bug our plans wavered. As her condition worsened, it looked like Marco might be coming with just the older girls. Then suddenly Audrey was in Community Hospital North, struggling to breathe.

In talking on the phone to our adult kids we listen at least as much for tone as words. Marco's voice reflected disappointment at the cancelled trip, and an unfamiliar parental concern.

When the phone rang at six in the morning Kay and I went on full alert. A few hours earlier during an emergency transfer to Riley Children's Hospital, Audrey had lost her struggle to breathe. Life Line service revived her. Now she lay in the ICU, stabilized, intubated, ventilated, attended by a round-the-clock nurse. The medical staff could optimize collateral care but battling the RSV virus was her own existential fight. If she hadn't won, and smiled winsomely at us ten days later, I wouldn't be introducing her to you now.

We shared a week on two simultaneous wavelengths, the choppy riffs of anxiety and the uplifting swells of love. Kay and I spent the days uptown with Lillian (7) and Vivian (4), nurtured by family friends. Julie vigiled with the baby. Marco took care of everybody's business from downtown headquarters at the Ronald McDonald House, a residential sanctuary on the hospital campus.

We'd walk through these doors to our daily mid-afternoon family rendezvous. The first thing you see is an enormous toy box where every child can rummage freely among the donations for something to keep. Everything says welcome, an all-expenses-paid hostel with vaulted ceilings and fireplaces for bewildered families.

Upstairs, a plaque on the door of their room carried the name of a corporate sponsor. We'd catch up on news, open mail, then head over to the hospital.

All the buildings seemed to be named for benefactors like the Simon family that owns our North Shore Mall, although the hospital itself honors Indiana native James Whitcomb Riley, 'The Children's Poet' who authored Little Orphant Annie.

By six o'clock we had to be back at the Ronald McDonald House for dinner, home cooking served by spirited groups from all over the area. We had the amazing experience of charity, of lining up to be sustained by people we didn't know. Many of the volunteers had had their own lives touched here in years past, not always with the gift of successful recovery. Dinner began with a prayer.



From the eighth floor of the pediatric wing we looked down on a rooftop helipad for the neediest patients. We could see the monorail called "The People Mover" that wound around the campus carrying faces with every sort of story and concern. We always had our eye out for wagons in the long corridors.

Our medical news became cautiously optimistic. Our wonderful Audrey was extubated and held by Mom and Dad. We wondered how to give thanks.

 

As we became aware of her real personality we saw a twinkle in Audrey's eye and a bit of swagger. Marco dubbed her a real cutie, but watch out guys because she's going to be the toughest kid on the playground. He stumbled through a rendition of the Elvis song he'd sung at her first homecoming, "I can't help falling in love with you."



Audrey greets 2014

 



Wild Wind

                              Wild wind, you’re a dragon of air

                                     roaring above the water,

                                     flicking your tail

                                     to drive waves ashore. 

 

                             The clouds scamper away.

 

                              You romp in their space,

                                      tickling the sea surface

                                      with ruffle prints,

                                      inserting your real power deeper down

                                      to drive waves ashore.  

                            Your repertoire with light

                                     presents all possible greens and blues,

                                     whips froth

                                     and a dash of rainbow

                                     to glamorize the shore.  

 

 

                         Wild wind,

                                    when I lean into your push,

                                    you pluck and pull.

                          You cross over in jest,

                                    blowing rooster tails across the waves.

                           It’s a chore flying through you. 

 

                              It’s your day.

                                     Weightless fliers

                                      welcome gravity

                                      to hold them to earth.  

 

                              You’re boss.

                                     Your bluster

                                     dissipates in lace. 

 

                              Wild wind, you have painterly flair,

                                       an opalescent eye

                                       iridescent breath

                                       rambunctious brushes.

Photographs by Joel Ray, Andrews Point, December 1, 2013.

On to Painting

Back in September at the launching point of these Notes I mentioned that the Dogtown poems and paintings of Marsden Hartley propelled me to get to know Halibut Point, and that I would start with the camera "while other aesthetic capabilities took their time to surface." You have accompanied me as I set out to write. Now, on to painting.

During the fall I enrolled in an art class with Carla Mattioli at the Rockport Senior Center. We explored watercolors and pastel drawing. Here are a few of my paintings. Carla's next session starts January 7. I've signed up again. Come join the fun!

 

Carla started each class with an evocative reading. From The Way of Chinese Painting by Mai-mai Sze: "The rocks are the roots of the clouds."

This phrase brought out other insights for Carla. Combining dissimilar elements such as clouds and rocks can strengthen the essential portrayal of each. In combination the clouds become more ethereal and the rocks become more massive.

Carla emphasizes that the road to creativity lies in repetition. "You only get freer as you practice more. Rooting - the rocks - is the practice; clouds are the flow that opens up from the discipline."

Carla structures the class in a sequence of earth, water, air, and warmth. She de-emphasizes 'motif,' or subject matter. She has found this approach a relief to many people who are reticent about trying to reproduce scenes. Her primary focus is on awakening to color.

I found the quality of warmth especially fascinating, a choice to be pursued in relation to its opposite, coolness, each available to convey a mood and to contrast with the other. I've begun to notice its function in writing also. It's there for all the arts, for movement, as well as for other relationships.

 

 

More than anything, painting takes a lot of looking. When it gets too intense or frustrating I have to remember to breathe, take a walk, be grateful. After all, it's magic. Life appears on the page.

 

 

"The class is a place to have your self-confidence increased. We develop positive feedback in looking at each other's work. I've seen students enjoy art more, their seeing of Nature shifting, creating more, which is a great joy." - Carla Mattioli

Voice

As I was experiencing openings to singing this fall I happened to meet the founding principal of a public school where singing two hours every day anchors the learning curriculum. The kids - and faculty - center on the very instrument that as a senior I'm just coming to enjoy.  

Voice Charter School emerged in Long Island City adjacent to Queensbridge, the largest public housing project in the country. This neighbor lays claim to being the home of Hip-Hop music. For principal Franklin Headley, a major appeal of his workplace is diversity.
 

 

While he was working as an adjunct professor at Columbia University in the millennial year 2000 Frank read an article in the New York Times about a program placing people without teaching experience directly in schools, after a few weeks training. He shifted careers to a fourth grade classroom in the South Bronx and fell in love with the kids. There he began a journey in educational reform resonating with a book he still refers to, Kant's The Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785).

Franklin Headley with teachers

Three years later Frank joined New Leaders for New Schools, a national program recruiting people to become principals in high needs areas. He became the assistant principal of an elementary school in Queens. While there he met a group of people at Saint Bartholomew's Church in Manhattan who wanted to start a Choir School. Together they persisted through the intricacies of visualization and bureaucracy to establish the Voice Charter School in 2008 with Kindergarten and First Grade. They've added one grade a year since, toward their eventual complement of Eight. The student body has grown to 540 children who come to school in uniform from 8:00am to 4:30pm every day, which allows extra time for the music program without sacrificing the other subjects.                                

 

 In a recent telephone conversation Frank expanded on some of his experiences: 

"Some kids who come to us don't know how to hold a book. They don't know how to open it, they don't understand the concept that when you turn the page there are new ideas, or that there's some continuity of ideas that carry across the pages. We think that singing helps a lot with the fluidity of language."

"They discover a personal instrument, their voice....It's amazing to see them on stage. When you see them every day, what their struggles are, and to see them get up there and sing in a professional manner, really having mastered some material, it's pretty neat....By second grade they're singing harmony. That means that not only are they mastering control of their own body, and their breathing, it means also they've got to listen to others."

 

"I think that we want most importantly - it's in our mission statement - it's just one word - and that word is 'choice.' We want them to grow up to be people who truly have choice in their lives. And you get choice by having a lot of tools, right?"

Song

The first time I heard a Carolina wren sparked a long, personal curiosity about voice, particularly when I finally saw that the creature producing such tremendous sound was only 3 inches tall. 

Carolina Wren

(Google Image)

That spritely bird made projection and pitch seem effortless. In my life, at least since elementary school, pleasant singing seemed inaccessible.

Over the years some encouraging glimpses came my way about the natural gift of singing. Remember the scene in The Gods Must Be Crazy (the Coke bottle movie) when African villagers harmonize spontaneously at the doors of their huts, voices as bright as their dress? They seemed to find their way into song by birthright, a universal potential cultivated in their culture. It flowed like a conversation close to the heart.

Another memorable film celebrated music rising freely out of daily living in our own country – Say Amen, Somebody, a documentary on the origins of Gospel singing in households and churches, formalized by Reverend Thomas Dorsey.

I heard Lou Harrison say in a radio interview that his symphonic compositions sought to emulate the sublime qualities of the human voice. He reversed my previous hierarchy of instruments, to give voice primacy.

I wanted to sing. This year the right teacher* came along to deconstruct various blocks and light the way. She advised that “the joy pathway is less familiar for you, but the more times you take it, the more established it becomes….Befriend the feeling of vulnerability.”

About the same time Theatre in the Pines director Nan Webber announced “We’re doing Cabaret in September. You’ll be playing Herr Schultz, and you’re going to sing.”

My musical début included three solo/duets in the fabulous acoustics of the Shalin Liu Performance Center. Since Herr Schultz is more a dramatic than melodic role it was a satisfying beginning.

I discovered how perfectly a good song can lend itself to emotion. Seldom as an actor have I experienced a character’s core more fully than through the avenue of these songs, a release into the channel of breath and recognition.

In a follow-up opportunity I joined the Cape Ann Symphony Singers in rehearsal for their holiday concert last weekend. I learned that I am a baritone. My voice coach recorded a piano accompaniment for practice and confidence. Choral artist Wendy Betts shaped sixty-two of us into an inspired program.

On the wall a quotation from Plato pointed to our reward: “Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.”

Just before we filed on stage Wendy reminded us to listen to the voices to either side of us, and sing to the tops of our heads. A full orchestra was poised to accompany us with its wealth of sound. The director raised his baton. The “pinch me” moment flowed into performance.

We concluded our program with “Believe”, from the movie Polar Express:

Believe in what your heart is saying,

Hear the melody that’s playing.

There’s no time to waste,

There’s so much to celebrate.

The next day as time approached to don my tuxedo for the matinee, this Carolina wren appeared outside the window.

*Isabella Bates, Voice Coach

Manchester

(978) 526-1443

Turkey Gravy

Dear Readers,

I enjoyed a fine blog banquet of responses to the last posting. Here follows a selection of affirmation and argument.

[That was an] amusing thought that the Rockport turkeys consider the mailman their subordinate (not so funny to the mailman though.)…A few years ago, after stopping for a quick lunch at the tea place in Rockport (on 127A), I was unable to leave there for about half an hour, as a group of turkeys charged me every time I tried to approach my car on the driver's side (maybe they saw their reflections in the car door and thought I was going after their flock.) I finally had to sneak slowly toward the rear of the car from the other side of the parking lot, then quickly sprint to the passenger's side, jump in, and slam the door before they saw me.  I just made it, and climbed over the stick shift to the driver's side.

…Barbara D.

By definition, as a hunter Dave Sartwell underestimates the complexity of the sentient beings he enjoys killing. Turkeys are often VERY smart. Here is just one example. Females bring up the brood. They OFTEN team up with other females and plan complex protection strategies.   One day in my backyard, poking about for food, there were two females; each with 6-7 chicks. The woman next door let her dog out! The mother closest to the dog started to flap and limp toward the dog looking confused and hurt. The dog hunched down, designing his strike. Meanwhile, the second female was gathering ALL the chicks, hurriedly, and moving them into the woods. Just as the dog lifted from his rear legs to pounce…the limping female took to the air. Dazzling!

…Lois B.

Elana’s rooftop