Author: Marion

Racing the storm

things I noticed

Cold. Again.

Hesitancy. Fear of cold, of shivering. A timid voice,

“I’m not dressed for this.”

Halt. Weight on heels. Roll forward, a firmer voice commanding,

“Walk on. Walk faster.”

Onward, quickly, trusting in motion to outpace cold. Breathe through the nose to build heat. Shoulders lean forward in speed; no. Open the heart. Lean back. Shoulders try to huddle for heat. Lean back. Breathe deep. Right hip leads the beat, and awareness shifts to my pelvis: is the right side forward? Balance. Lead from the left for a step.

Up the stairs to the library roof, two at a time in strength. Feeling muscles stretch and flex, smiling. Over the roof and down the other side, the long shallow steps to the wood. One and two-three, again and again, like dancing.

Resistance, wood chips and mud underfoot. Pushing harder, shoulders roll again. Slower, lean back. Better heart open than feet fast.

Through the woods and out, and on the far side white dashes inhabit the air.

Snow.

Turn to home. Sun hangs low under swollen cloud.

A mallard races the storm.

The head of a reed

things I noticed

A cramp in my hand after three hours of painting details. Tightness in my forearm.

Old hydrangea blossoms fade to pale grey-green, to jade, with faint golden hairlines at the edges. Others fall off and are replaced by tiny brown seed pods with two horns each.

The head of a reed is held within its stalk. The stalk ends, and feathery seed-bearing strands emerge. Some spill out through a split in the reed: flesh out of constraint. Flesh pouring over tops of stockings, or else a flash of thigh through a walking slit.

Watercolor painting illustration of reed grasses

Have I been too long alone, that grasses grow sexual?
Don’t kid yourself. Grasses have always been about sex. Or rather, a-sex. Self and self and wings in the air, masturbation with a bestial kink.

I noticed the morning gone all into these paintings of last year’s growth. Not wasted. I pinned them to my wall and reveled in them.

I have noticed that to create can feel godlike:
“There was no thing, and then I took action, and now there is a thing. There was only matter, and now a form. Only idea, and now there is art. All by the work of my hands.”

The pleasure of looking at a painting of grass is mixed with satisfaction, and different from the pleasure of looking at grass. Building my layers of illustration, some need is fulfilled which is more than I knew of when I sat down to draw.

What is this? I don’t want to get too mystical on you, but in creation we transcend our basic matter. We taste a feeling closer to holy. I suspect this is why we have babies.

Or, is it the reverse? Is this strange elation in creation a mirror of procreation, the urge to immortality? Am I afraid to die? Searching for a legacy to survive?

Green eyes gazing

things I noticed

Green eyes gazing.

Early sun slanting through the trees, and now every new leaf is a point of light. Sun a caress on the backs of my thighs, another staccato beat somewhere high in the treetops, pecking.

I wish I could paint this so that you could understand.

Snail shells by the creek bed in the mud, some inhabited. A mushroom cap, a rolled real of plastic: ephemera of the forest floor. And everywhere, that little green leaf that heals.

Rustle in the leaves and out hops a sparrow, fat brown bird in the undergrowth.

Hunger.

Leaves like slender fingers, furled. A closed hand around something precious.

One tree by the bicycle path covered not with leaves but with brown seed pods the size and shape of diminutive shoes. As if a company of elves had camped there overnight and left nothing behind but their slippers.

The smell of this pen’s ink, the ink I wrote with a dozen years ago at a slanting writing desk in my parents’ house.

How lonely the books seem when seen though library windows. Left stacked on shelves, not even filed in the rush to quarantine. I long to enter, to run my hands over them, to comfort them.

Our neurons fire

things I noticed

A shift in mind as I round the first bend to the park. Calming, slowing. Drop irritation behind me. I heard yesterday that our neurons fire in cycles of two beats per second, a hundred and twenty cycles per minute, and that these cycles can be influenced by faster or slower music. Walking to a slower beat, do I slow my manic neurons?

Coming again to a point of noticing gives pleasure, like a tonic note or a good joke. Half anticipation, half surprise, familiar. Let me pepper my walks with points of closely seen.

Sharp little buds again, but here another form – a vine wrapped over and around in loving tangle. Sharp-budded tree bent double, domed. Doomed? this amourous pair will grow together or perish, one or the other. But look, the promiscuous vine reaches already for another, the next tree over. This one will always land on its feet.

The forest is full of such romances.

Here, on the lee side, honeysuckle bear bundles of leaves already. Already, redheaded tufts beard the maples. Not long, now, to blossom. What will they do when the snow comes? Late snow in spring this year, again.

Over the bridge and up, steps to the library roof. The Christmas spruce is gone at last; only rust and needles left.

Walking back on the paved straight path, I close my eyes to head my beat, my breathing. Notice my head’s faint weaving, which I’ve never caught before.

Signs of rain

things I noticed

Signs of rain: wet ground, heavy dawn, an untrustworthy sky. Smell of water in the air. Rumble thunder in the near distance. Today I confine.

The way I sleep and wake contingent on weather. Last night: woke at three for a storm and asleep at six for its aftermath, the dark that follows.

Cat rebuking me with her eyes as I leave the bed.

Wind rising.

Today I noticed my dreams have become melancholy: tears for a love lost in ways that were never mine. I noticed my eyes leaked on waking.

Today I noticed reluctance to paint, for the first time this season. A symptom? Art becoming just a job? Or loss of momentum, not having painted in the weekend? Push on, Marion. Painting is not writing. The path is always apparent.

Am I afraid of succeeding?

Primaries subdued

things I noticed

Younger woman in sunglasses and sweats, on the same path I am. Body plump as young bodies are plump: fresh, inviting. Does she understand what beauty of youth she carries? See how she struts; she knows.

Small grey curly thing with a paw lifted, face tilted. Mid-day, the little dogs come out.

Music, from where? A space between walkers. Sound ebbs and rushes with the wind, “All is quiet on New Year’s Day.” Really, Bono? Do you think so? Early this morning you’d have been right. Now la monde is outside.

Young ones scramble over rocks after a lost ball.

Brushed gold grasses, rusty sumac, lake a deep blue under this sky. The primaries subdued; how pleasing. Flutter of fallen leaves, this mischievous wind, and a child named Bianca. White, in the midst of it all.

Where there were sage green buds: new leaves. Branches that rattled now rustle. Run of green up a stalk: a trill.

Oh, young man in a muscle car, you’re not half such a thrill.

Temptation to braid these reeds on the forest’s edge. I was here.

Smell of sap rising. Buds bead the tips of twigs, buds as sharp as little milk teeth.

Across a small bridge over a brook, sight of a blue-headed mallard wading upstream. Not that there is much stream to contend with. More, it’s the broken trees that block his way. He waddles gamely over logs and under arches, his bill so bright, so sudden, it looks painted on or plastic.

I notice I’ve lost my pen.

A small family bent in the wood, gathering. What, I ask. Mother calls to son, son calls to grandson, grandson explains: plants to to rub on skin, to heal the hands. Broken French on both sides, we smile and touch and gesture. May I take a picture? Image comes to focus, shutter clicks, and I hand back the healing. Small family walks on, under waking trees under noon sun.

Question mark neck

things I noticed

Aging skater boy, leaning back on his board in the curve.

And what are these? Baby magnolia? Cheerful as daisies, they try and try.

In this heat, the children emerge on bikes and on blankets. Pushed in strollers and carried in their parents’ arms.

Another dead squirrel where I saw one at the equinox. The first was thin and frozen, this one fat and lustrous. Spring progresses.

The goose brigade is out. What’s this fellow doing, solo in the cul de sac of the lake? Green, gentle water; he sips and he honks. Teenagers at the wall honk back at him.

Heron with a fish in its mouth, swallowing. He stabs and stabs, and down the gullet it goes at last. Old man heron with his question mark neck.

Worms have bellies

things I noticed

Worms on the path after rain. One little one, prehensile head searching, stretching.

It is translucent, almost, body pink and peach and bruise coloured toward the tail. A band around its belt, quite orange. Nubbins on its belly. Worms have bellies?

Across a bridge and down a red brick walk I find myself at the centre of a court ringed round with houses. Houses linked elbow to elbow; all their eyes are windows focused inward toward me, the intruder at the centre.

Here a sleeping fountain flaunts its works.

A fine rain falls. Scent of water in the air, which is not the odour of wet earth. Pale blue electric scent: scratched metal, fork against teeth.

Clearing the wall

things I noticed

Today I noticed how bare the wall looks without its paintings. Taking them down to clear the way for a new month’s work always makes me feel as if the Grinch has come, and left nothing but the tacks. I put up a mask in their place; it doesn’t help.

Now, on the wall there are: a mask, three small bulldog clips (French bulldog clips?), numerous pins, one small painting of silk, and words from Patti Smith:

“Why do we write? A chorus erupts. Because we cannot simply live.”

Summer may come

things I noticed

Rabbit running across a field, ears stiffly upright. The ghost of Easter chocolate.

One red line running up out of last year’s growth. Below, new shoots: single, duo, trio, all the same startling red.

Wiry grasses shedding selves across the path.

A goose standing sentinel.

Red brick block reproducing endlessly. Eerie harmony.

The magnolia trees are beginning to bloom.

Summer may come, after all.