lilacs #1- a polaroid from the archives
There's a big huge moon this morning hanging over the harbour and shining in the windows upstairs, making big patches of moonlight on the floor in my almost empty office. Empty because it's awaiting paint, the walls are finished but I need to paint the trim and floors, and the inside of the closet. Someone suggested I just keep the closet door closed ... but I know that every time I opened the closet to get something I would think to myself why didn't I paint this closet. A clean creamy white.
Oliver and Gus are in the midst of their we just had our breakfast so we're going to peel around the house, busting with energy, up and and down the stairs like a wee herd of elephants. Lots of crashing and banging and thumping. Bleet's gone out to wander around in the moonlight, Lulu's lying on her pillow on my desk and Miss Dixon is curled up here on the sofa beside me waiting patiently for me to make a move.
Winnie and I have been skipping the drive to the beach these last few days. It's the place that makes me the feel the most sad I think. I was looking through photos last night and came across some of my sweet Jake when he was very young, soon after he arrived here at 29 Black St. Fetching sticks, his purpose in life, in the water of his most favourite place, our beach at the end of the dead end road. It's comforting in a sense because I do believe their spirits and souls, both Em and Jake, live there. It was the place they loved the most - it is and was their place and my place of pure joy. Hundreds, thousands maybe, of hours spent lost together at that place. Wandering way out on the sand bars, stopping to peer into tide pools looking for creatures, starfish and hermit crabs. Collecting smooth and polished beach glass and tiny bright orange periwinkle shells. Throwing sticks endlessly in the water for my boy to dutifully swim out and collect. He always preferred I throw two sticks, sometimes even three, he liked the extra challenge. Em and Winnie would lie in the wet sand and chew a perfect stick into little bits of wet wood, spitting the pieces out all around them ... while Jake and I fetched sticks. Often it was just me and my three dogs, then two and now one. It's just so strange to drive there now without Jake, to wander those snowy pastures and along the ice covered beach without him just Winn & me ... but we will go back, maybe this weekend.
lilac #2
This morning you wrote about the beach as a place of inspiration. I wanted to let you know how much the sea treasures you sent from there mean to me. I have them in a little green dish on my dresser. Green glass, blue glass, clear glass, seven tiny shells, and a pretty piece of blue and while pottery. I live too far from the sea, but these treasures bring the sea to me.
ReplyDeleteThe little shard of blue and white pottery delights me, too. It reminds me of the big, old house in which we used to live, with its white walls and cornflower blue trim. It was one of those special houses that one never forgets. I had touches of blue and white all over the house, with blue and white pottery in the dining room. This little piece of pottery nestles among the glass and shells, reminding me of the sea and of home, all the things that I love the most.
I have put my sea treasures in a little dish shaped like a fish and it sits on my nightstand. I live by the sea in southeast Texas, but I appreciate so much how these treasures came from the sea yet so far away from me. I love them.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as you spoke of searching the sand ... of finding tiny treasures...I, too, immediately thought of my sea glass and my little shard of pottery worn smooth by the waves. Mine is purplish pink...and a mussel shell so lovely and smooth. I love to feel them... it is like swishing a finger around in a little bowl of beautiful beads or buttons.
ReplyDeleteI put them in a tiny little old glass jar my sister gave me...it sits alongside my funny little antique vases that traveled all the way from England to Canada in an auntie's suitcase.
treasures
I'm so glad that you're all enjoying your beach treasures. You can be sure that each and every piece of glass and pottery and every tiny periwinkle were all lovingly gathered by me, and most likely, my gang of three - Em, Jake and Winnie Dixon.
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