Sagadahoc Stories #91:
And Then It Rained
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Tuesday morning was lowry and smelled wet, but the progs were
calling for sun til Friday. Then a short sprinkle went through,
and I got the message. Went up to Mr. Mann's barn where we stored
Bill's old tarps, and we dug out a big blue beauty. Threw it aboard
Ebba and rumbled for home. I had just pulled the covers over this
boat skeleton when the skies opened. |
And Rained. Steady for two days, then on and off through Sunday.
You could hear the green stuff sighing and slurping it up. Leaves
exploding. Grass jumping. Roots wriggling. Through the mist, vistas
blushed, as pale bronzes and burgundys blurred into the yellow-greens
and carmines. Oaks and ashes chasing the birches and maples into
leaf. Deciduous inflorescence.
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The tender freshness of early May, when dark woods are dappled
with new colors, lasts just a moment. Already there are lush passages
along the roads, where the canopy has covered over, and the tinkered
manscapes are full of flowers. Orioles are eating oranges, and
a woodpecker rattles the air all day. |
| I didn't get much rattling done on the ark, what with the downpours,
and had a chance to catch up on paperwork and hanging projects.
This oversized floating sculpture tends to expand to fill every
conscious minute, and it takes a week of rain to bring you to
your senses. |
Not These
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This Kind
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More or less. What with the veg going wild, I figured it was probably
a good chance to be fiddling. Wednesday I put on my yellow boots
and black rainpants, and went for a gully wander with CC. Sure
enough, ferns uncurling everywhere and the watercourses agurgle.
I don't get much woods rambling in the Spring, when the dooryard
is full of doings, and the transformation from stark solitude
to glistening fronds is abrupt. Fast foliage, hold the flies. |
| I'd only intended to essay a few photos of the fiddles, and hadn't
brought a bucket, but the sight of those morsels made my mouth
water. Pretty soon I was munching on raw greens. CC ran round
furiously searching for the snack. She could see I was crunching
on something toothsome, but all she could smell was young bracken.
Dripping and content we sloshed home, full of Spring tonic. |
Fiddler's Green
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I'd given up hope for a spell of dry, so when Brent asked if I'd
ride shotgun on an installation I jumped aboard. It was the driftwood
bannister he's been confabulating since last Fall. Some summerpeople
in Georgetown had contacted him with the notion, and provided
a handful of flotsam for the job. About a twentieth of the necessary
pieces.
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One rainy afternoon in November Brent, Jo, Dr. Bob and I went
down along the Kennebec shore below the doc's digs, and scavenged
driftwood. We loaded Ebba high with artwood, and offloaded it
at the bannister factory. Brent's been fussing with it on and
off ever since, and now it was ready to install. A forty foot
driftwood sculpture to grace an interior balcony in one of those
modest $300,000 summer places. |
He loaded up Tuesday afternoon, when it looked to be clearing,
but as soon as we set sail it deluged. By the time we got downcountry
the whole works was soaked. Worse yet, when we got to the "cottage"
the key had disappeared. We hunted high and low as rollers tossed
onto the shore and the driving drip plumed past. Nope. In the
end we piled the pieces on the porch and gave over for another
day. Never did get a picture of the finished work. You'll have
to imagine it.
| In fact it's hard to capture this transient moment, wet or dry.
I spent a good part of the week cruising round in Ebba looking
for the telling view. I got a call from the Maine Times, which
is going back into publication under new owners, asking for some
timely artwork. Searching through my paintings, I find that Spring
takes are scarce as straight-talk in Augusta. Maybe it's the scent
of hyacinths, or the brush of sunlight on skin, or the bumbling
of a bee, which colors the season. Maybe there is no picture to
tally the tale. That instant when yearning is realized. And passes. |
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After the Fire
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Mitch stopped in the yard Thursday AM, to return a favor, and
said I ought to come up to Brinley's to see the renovations. Ever
since the fire last year Tom has had a crew recreating the original
building under Brinley's critical eye. Tom and Terry and Mitch
and Bruce and the subs have labored steady, using salvaged timbers
and clever craftsmanship to reproduce 18th century proportions.
Brinley and his life-long companion, Stephanie, have been doing
the finish painting, and the result is so much like the original
that the effect is eerie.
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Tom and Mitch and I were alone upstairs under the eaves discussing
diagonal bracing, and Tom glanced over his shoulder and whispered,
"Brinley really doesn't like these braces."
"Is he in the building," I asked. And we laughed.
Then the phone rang. It was Stephanie calling from their rental
house. Brinley had just dropped dead. |
Grief
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Sometimes there's a rent in the fabric, and time is torn. The
world is disordered. Nothing makes sense. Half the carpenters
in town have been collaborating on resurrecting an old house for
a dear and amiable eccentric. Suddenly he's gone.
Supplication
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Austin "Brinley" Maury was one of our elder statesmen. A shambling
erratic who spent his days volunteering at the homeless center
or doing research in the stacks of the college library. He and
Stephanie lived quiet lives under the elms, in that old brick
house up the Ridge Road, surrounded by his troves of found treasure.
Tales were told that he'd been a costume designer on Broadway,
run a store on Haight in its heyday, was still a bit dizzy as
a result. A sweet and gentle man who could turn the least occurrence
into a witty quip. Folks might shake their heads when he lugged
past in fourth gear in his old Volvo, but they always smiled. |
Now it appears Brinley was supervising the creation of a monument
to his sensibility. A brand new 200-year-old house, full of chosen
details and outmoded crotchets. Beautiful in its simplicity, with
a grand view out back. He IS in the building.
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It's been a hard Spring in the mortality department. George Delira,
Big Mike's dad, died of a heart attack last month, and now Brinley
does the same. It's almost as though people wait until the air
softens to let down their guard. Maybe it's in the between times,
when the doors are open, that our spirits find it easy to cross
over. |
| George was another local artist, who specialized in portrait commissions.
He worked for many years as a paint chemist, and I wanted to sit
down and have him explain pigmentation to me from an artist's
angle. Look through the local sketchbooks he kept. But he's gone
over, with the first blush of Spring color. |
Mossy Tree
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SpringPlowing
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I managed to take a few snaps of the passing season, and learned
how to tease a semblance of new leaves out of the paintbox, sort
of. When I heard that Max and Mitch were going to help Cornish
hitch up his plow to three horses to cut old sod, I trotted down
to Harpswell for a gander. Pretty slick. That troika tromping
along the furrows, peeling up the sod. Across the field spring
birches paled against the coastal spruce and fir. Just enough
breeze to keep the flies down.
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| I did get to toss off the covers and fasten some of the long timbers
in the scow, as the drench turned to showers this weekend. Scarfed
the bilge stringers and screwed then in. Got a hunk of 2-inch
oak from Max and laminated it into the stem-box I've sawn out.
The bottom is now ready for fairing and planking. When the sky
clears I can move on to the side framing. |
Violets
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While I was mucking with epoxy, Christopher came over to ask if
I had any paying work. He wants to buy a dirt bike, for which
he has $500, but needs a couple hundred more for what he's eying.
Always delighted to encourage that misguided Protestant Ethic,
I said I'd pay him 5 bucks an hour to spread gravel on our driveway.
I've had a pile of the good stuff waiting for an excuse all Spring.
I figured it was maybe an hour's work for me, say two for a 10-year-old.
It took him four, but he kept right at it. Dawdling a bit at first,
and grousing, but then swinging into the rhythm. Shovel the barrow
full, huff it down the drive, dump it, rake, and return. Did a
great job, too, spreading it out nice and level, burying the ruts.
When I handed over the twenty, I don't know who was more tickled,
him or me. Chris asked if I had a job for him "all summer." How
old fashioned.
Spring Scene
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A while back I was up to Max's cabinet shop, admiring some wide-board
pine he had in a corner. A clear 19 inches. Back when he had a
Wood-Miser bandsaw mill, Max felled a big pine on his land, and
milled it on the spot. This was the last of that tree, and he
was waiting for a suitable project for it. I asked if he'd be
interested in making a blanket chest to go in our front room.
Two foot by three foot by a board-width high. Last week he wondered
if I still wanted it, and I jumped at the chance. |
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Yesterday I picked it up. A simple box with lovely proportions
and staggered dovetails. An elegant piece for Mother's Day, taken
from stump to finish by the same hands. Another bit of the old
fashion. There's a gratifying closure in such a chest. |
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