interesting that this one a little different than the others..I was just about to blog my heart out on the subject of the what...? I do believe I was going to 'task' these comments, direct them to a certain end..but I've got the situation at hand with a blueberry muffin and a fresh cup of decaf..and I forget what I was going to say..hmm, there's a way to fix that but stream of consciousness writing doesn't work that way, to my way of thinking...I think was going to describe willison cottage itself..and why I call it Mermaid's Reef..and what's the big deal about that? in those terms..
ok, first off, because I'm using the mermaidonthereef blog, it's to talk about what needs done to willison cottage, what happened to it, what I'm doing to it, going to do to it (as I chomp on a muffin and sip on a coffee) and why I want to do this anyway
first of all, in summer this is a pretty magical place
the lacy fern the cottonwood, the stream, the giant yellow iris, the beach..the birds, all of it in a messy lot that lacks definition
last summer we put a fence between myself and the gallery. sue wanted to do it, I didn't have an opinion other than I love to work at things like this and so it went up. we never got to the gate but I found a big old post with hooks on one side of it where the gate slides on and now I look for fastening rings with which to set the gate panel itself. I'm not a really terrible carpenter but I'm not very skilled either. simple is good for me. there's some bundles of wire fence to skirt where the fence went high, to complete the closing in of the yard for the dogs getting out. I don't think they're about to cross the stream, they're not that kind of dog. There's little children at Sue's from time to time, they could come over and play when I have the swings and slide up. That's another plan and times I've fallen asleep dreaming of how the main beam holds the swings and the supports are notched just so to hold it up. I wasn't sure about where it went, where the swings would be placed because I have the garden space allocated now, it looks like an upside down 'L' and is being mulched and cultivated with potatoes presently. To the other side of it, where I first began, there's onions and chive competing with the wild stuff, a rugged border between it and the garden path, now lined with shingle from the roof as a paved walkway. beach grass and wild rose are in a little triangle at that side of the 'L' but they'll give way to something more modern, less primitive...some glorious bush like the camelia from the other yard, perhaps..although I like the disengenuous continuity I have so far achieved in my efforts here.
Perhaps I should describe how the yard looked before I began to rearrange it. There was enough bramble back there, garbage, water, to make me feel as though I'd never get it cleaned up. It was a wild place, it was let go..it was a torrent of disuse. The blackberry canes went everywhere and ripped at me, my clothing, my bare arms and hands, shins, wore out my tools, but I never took a chainsaw to it, I clipped it down piece by fierce piece, until it was as Sue says 'beat back'. The hydrangea rises along the fence now, the little orange lillies have distinct places or origin, there is still a lot of water grass, razor grass, wild rose, and there's a random pampas now, lots of the yellow iris, a path that divides just outside the basement door going to sue's and to the stream...where to put the swings...
I guess the swings have to wait for another time to speak to them because they should be there somewhere. I've put on a clothesline, kind of a necessity but the lines are thick rope and that won't do, not next summer. i envisioned the lines holding silkscreen printing, clothespinned on, what would I paint? it was that little orange lilly I painted on the deck..the deck that wasn't there when the house came to me...there was a big hole there then...the back door intact but the floor inside of it, nope..gone.., most of the area just disintegrated from the weather
the weather is pretty fierce, not like here in the fall, where it's cool and there's someone in the kitchen standing on the marble floor making a smoothie...the weather there does rival the canadian brunswicks I think, newfoundland, and so on...although when the sun comes out the weather is timid, frail in the sun..very kind..you can find lovely agates on the beach, they sparkle in the sun..but then, the dog runs along the water's edge and you fail to look closely and you miss a lot of them
the beach is nearby, the river's mouth is making a set to with where it wants to establish itself and so the beach has been recarved, the only way to walk it now is to go all the way down to slip point and enter there, where the road stops in front of Bob's trailer, take that path down to where the river now comes out and then walk back up again...a long haul, several miles, but if you're in the mood to do so, have a pot of soup in the crockpot and fresh bread rising, you could make a day of it easy..and listen to music when you get back, write to your kids, hmmm..I see where I was thinking about 'charming billy' and wondering why not everyone feels as happy to contemplate what one could do..living where one does
I don't feel the least bit homesick at present. I like the fact I can stand back here and reanalyze what I've done so far at the Reef...the garage is painted like a Rauschenberg wanna be project, all sorts of flamboyant color on one side, the other side a little mural of a sandpiper that reads 'welcome to clallam bay' for those returning from Neah Bay...I guess it's going to stay there, but the garage is three different aspects of consideration presently and I think I ought to pull it together some how, some day...
Under the garage is my stacks of wood to build a deck along the back. Julius scoffs at what I've got there "need some good McLanahan timber on that" he observes and doesn't want to be the brave one that climbs sue's tall ladder to attach the roughcut boards that I see going along the eves of the garage roof...I found those in the woods, I figure the wookies (sasquatch)left them for me, as their contribution to the bizarreness of what the garage has transformed into...the tin can lids, removed from the canned corn, green beans, carrots, whathave you, nailed along the yard side of the garage, along the border, like a great fish scale, something I saw in Alaska, as siding on a house..various paints there, with those scales (the tin lids)..dark wood stain, bright blue and green and splashes, two wooden paintings on that wall, a tribute to the big splasher himself..I wanna say Rothko or Portnoy but it's that one that does that paint drip so well, him...why doesn't his name come to me? I was thinking when he painted like that, he really could draw and represent what he saw, but he was talking to the processes by which we conceive our impression, working on those, and it does work, it works very well, it's so deep and mystical it defies time in its application/technique...still can't think of his name...that one anyway
yesterday it was Ken Kesey that I was thinking of...it was a little documentary of his life and times..even he looks conservative now, but he never was, never was anything but himself and his way of thinking, all to help everyone else because he had so much of it, what he had...enthusiasm, laughter, a serious side about what good is war? his magic bus now rising out of the loam on Stange's (stan geez) old farm, a rusty relic gaining momentum to fly again down the highways...a way of life we shall all embrace with open arms because there is laughter there, a place to express our emotions and not have them grow twisted in darkness..
well, I was talking about the landscape of the Reef wasn't I? or the projects, there's plenty of tile and mortar but you know it's hard to come up with the proverbial 'glue'..what do you use? mastic, has to be...and then the tiles go on, and they're rugged here and there, the kitchen counter has been decorated with them, the kitchen sink awaits a smoothing off, no granite here, just mom's filigree..and then there's cupboards from across the street old doors rescued before the pin bugs got to them, with little glass nobs and paint peeling off in great rolls, from a ceiling that sees the sky, but could be a boathouse, if we had license to do it..
the galley sink and no cupboards there but there could be, it would just quash the space I think, rather plants, growing the orchid in the steam of the sink would be a good thing, the side deck having given birth to one really nice painting called 'top of the wave' already..that impresses me that two years of study of the wave processes, how to interpret what I see in that energy of motion, the colors contained in it...it came off quite nicely..and the laundry, washer and dryer there, to contain the processes of making art, the porch itself quite sturdy thanks to Green's hammer..hehe, how nice that was to have the lumber of McLanahan, only a few dollars, and the truck hauled it all..I'd like it to be on the back side of the house as well, that same sturdiness and rugged timber, to observe the elements and the back yard
I go to the side porch in evenings to drink a beer and smoke a cigarette, the only time I sit down long enough to study what I've been doing. Mornings I might have my coffee there, definitely I have the radio on and the back door open winter or summer because I use wood heat and it flows everywhere...if I had the back deck on I'd redo the bathroom, make the present one the bathroom off the backbedroom, extend the studio onto the porch create a widow's walk above to see the river's mouth.
so there's plans but there's still no consideration of where the swings should go..and they should be somewhere in the backyard, probably where the deck ends the swings would go parallel to it..a gravel stretch beneath them...a slide at the side, as long as the path was retained
swings..and children, there has to be a set of children forever in my home..along with dogs and pizza and kittens and a handsome man to hold court there..hehe..now I am talking in lines of poetry..
whew..
