WALDEN - MY TIME TO WRITE
I have never written well or often in the summer months. Maybe I’m a little like Canadian landscape artist, Tom Thomson, who enjoyed painting Algonquin scenes from the fall to the spring but found the summer months too green, and without the dramatic contrasts he most admired about the lakeland vista.
I don’t enjoy the heat and humidity and I only own one small fan that is more annoying than refreshing. I prefer being outdoors, perched lazily on the lakeshore, or sitting comfortably beneath one of my wonderful maples in our homestead forest. This year the shade didn’t help relieve much more than the direct sunlight, as the humidity was impossible to escape. I did what they do in a lot of tropical countries, and got my work done around the property before late morning, when the temperature and closeness began to rise. I’d venture into the Bog with my mate Bosko, my canine companion, and we’d take a slow walk to nowhere in particular. It always seemed cooler down on the level of the marsh grasses and deep fern cover, and while the dog rolled on the hard-packed path, I’d satisfy myself by leaning up against the tree that has been my stalwart support for the past 20 years, its curvature perfect for my aching back. Dog and human spent a lot of time pondering this summer.....when would the heat end, and “I can’t wait for the chill of nightfall.”
It was one of the hardest working summers in recent memory, despite the hot climate, as there were many projects of homestead repair that simply couldn’t wait for completion. Most often the summer is when my wife (a teacher) and I, set out on daily antique hunts, searching for those evasive pieces to offer our customers......who have long known us in the profession, as folks who can come up with unusual, unique and even strange art pieces and primitives. This summer, we simply had to put it all on hold, except for travels locally. We’re pretty happy about improvements here, and new shelving to hold our thousands of books. Around here, moving one table or buffet, can displace about a thousand items on and within, and surrounding, so considering we moved about one hundred pieces of furniture at Birch Hollow, in the past two months, you must surely be able to appreciate the widespread chagrin of being obsessive collectors. We were the poster kids for a hoarding reality show.
As a writer, my biggest problem has been keeping old clippings, manuscripts and reference material. I’ve had to bring this volume down considerably, in order to have any place to sit and work in my office. I’ve even gotten rid of my small collection of old manual typewriters that I used up until a few years ago, before my son Robert got me to switch to the computer keyboard. Now he uses the old manuals in his recording studio, to get those historic sounds mixed with contemporary music creations by string and drum. What used to be my vehicle to creation, is now a sound effect device. Well, glad it could be of some use in this era of high tech everything.
I have found the Bog very peaceful this summer season, and I have very much needed it to ease the inner turmoil of change. I like commonplace, and even the change of the chair I sit in daily, is enough to throw me off my stride for a couple of weeks. I’ve had a plethora of new chairs around here, and much more, so when things have gotten too crazy for an oldtimer, ....well, I retreat, sometimes often........where my wife and curious neighours can find me standing out on the brink of the Bog, listening to the overhead owls and the distant loons, and the gentle wash of wind through the tall grass and ferns. These sojourns have been enough to soothe the savage beast within. Actually, it wasn’t all that savage, just disenfranchised from that stuffy, stale old way of living, my wife was determined to revamp. She was quite right, and I now very much enjoy the additional space and ease of movement, without fearing an askew stack of books may, at the slightest nudge, domino wildly across the parlor.
I will attempt to write more this autumn season, which by tradition, has always been my most creative time of year. I need my Walden, away from all this work and stuff.
