Sagadahoc Stories #75: 1/18/99
Twenty-one Turkeys
Then it got serious. Two good snowfalls back to back, with the
reefer running. A foot of fresh whiteness on top of glazed crust,
and the mailboxes buried in plow banks. The world is all humps
and hollows, contours and glitter, when the sun dares. Which wasn't
much this week. A parade of disturbances marched along the coast,
closing schools, and delighting the ski bums.
It takes a couple weeks to get acclimated to real winter. I was
kneeling in the snow trying to break out some stovewood when it
finally hit me: put on your winter clothes, idiot. I rummaged
out the padded overalls and lined boots. Stuffing yourself into
sub-zero country-chic is fraught with nostalgia. Every year the
outfit is a bit tighter, and the sensation of being a little kid
shoe-horned into last year's play suit is disorienting. But comforting.
Dressed up so you could roll in the snow destroys your last adult
pretensions. Kneeling in a snowbank feels like playtime. Maybe
mother has cocoa on.
| A lot of the mothers were home, storm-bound, this week, and the
image of cloistered families round the hearth, with only the snowplow
rumbling in the road, makes a town real homey. Of course it's
a phosphorescent hearth these days, with 100 digital channels.
Still, trudging around in fresh snow with the dog, everything
silent in the blanketed town, tends to erase history, or at least
postpone it. Just a couple of animals out in the weather, right
now. |
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Another side of the deep freeze can creep up on you, though. Winter
angst. SAD. Snow blues. And a lot of that stuff piled up this
week. When the roads are closed you might get trapped in a room
with yourself. I try to get out for an hour or more each day while
the sun is high, to escape myself, thrash out the megrims, but
it doesn't always work. Just doing your day job is another cure
for seasonal affect, of course. Calvinist medicine. Salvation
through labor. If you depend on creative enthusiasm to motivate
your workday, however, you're sleet out of luck when the lows
go through.
|
I puttered at ongoing projects, but my heart wasn't in it. Even
the books I had handy didn't help. A depressing bio of Washington
Irving, who suffered from dry spells lasting up to ten years,
and ANGELA'S ASHES? Talk about beating your head on the wall.
There isn't even any whiskey in the house. Stymied in snowtime. |
After the first whiteout it was too deep for skiing, so I plodded
around on shoes, muttering complaints, trying to figure out exposure
settings on the digi-O that would produce decent snow pictures.
Somewhere along the line, as altostratus slid over to gray the
day, I crammed my sunglasses into a pocket. When I got home it
was dark, I hadn't gotten a single good picture, and the glasses
were disappeared. Just perfect.
| In the night the snow drifted nicely, and settled, so my shoe
trail was mostly eradicated. But I knew where I'd been, more or
less, and my Scots was up. Those sunglasses were only two years
old, and not quite opaque with scratches. Next morning I clipped
on the skis, and kicked off on a retroversion. I skied circles
around every spot I'd taken pictures, to no avail. My last attempts
had been up on the airfield, and I was sure that would be the
place. I remembered digging in my pockets there, changing camera
batteries in the blowing powder. But: Nope. |
|
At that point I almost turned off my back trail to follow a fresh
ski trace, but a residual stubbornness drove me to complete that
old circuit, even though it was so drifted you couldn't tell exactly
where I'd been. CC and I paused on the top of Wallentine's hill
to let the sweat cool, and admire town hall poking up across the
river. Which was when I saw one black ear-piece sticking out of
the sheer whiteness, way down the slope ahead of us. YES. Maybe
it wasn't so bad a day after all. You lose your vision, only to
find it again.
| I'd been confronting my own futility. Wondering what on earth
I'm doing here. Sketching a town? Creating an electronic chronicle?
Trying to carve caricatures of the time, symbols of the place?
Imagining the "Spirits of America?" Am I out in the puckerbrush
whistling in the wind? What I'm producing is utterly idiosyncratic.
I've lost the knack of the hustle. What's the point? Am I just
chasing my tail? |
LittleFish
|
Probably. Chasing SOMETHING, certainly. Which got me to thinking
about a way to visualize this winter quest. In an inner season
we pursue figures across mythic landscapes. I'd like to lay hands
on the essential symbols. But my inflated desire to conjure the
major deities, to capture something big and important in the work,
always hisses off like a pricked balloon. Makes a rude noise,
like a jester's bladder. When I try anything SERIOUS, it ends
up comic. Are the Indians right? That the local creative deity
is a trickster? When you try to grab her, she's a shapeshifter?
I began to see another Trickster Hare: a Snowshoe Bunny. In a
bigfooted snowsuit. Teasing me. Is that what I'm chasing in the
woods?
Hot Bun
|
She comes out almost two dimensional. Just one foot points into
the third dimension, and she looks both ways. A smiling handful.
And because it's Steve's birthday I make a pair of smaller hares
in hot pursuit. Arlene commissioned an Arc some years back for
his January birthday, with the idea that I'd make pairs of animals
as occasional gifts, and they'd slowly fill the boat. Slowly,
for sure. I haven't been working in that scale, and only a caricature
Noah and two dancing deer have gone aboard to date. But the idea
of passionate bunnies populating the Arc, at least imaginatively,
seemed just right, under a Trickster moon. |
| So I've been fooled back into the work. Maybe you can't keep a
grand vision in sight all the time, just chase glimpses. And when
it gets too serious, sneak up on the Trickster. I'm working on
a companion piece for the Snowshoe Bunny: Creeping Coyote. He's
all 2D, slinking around a curve on a cupped piece of oak. Very
Egyptian. A Native American Anubis. That hare sees him coming.
The chase is on. |
Coyote
|
And I've been chasing another image this week, which may tell
the whole story. Mr. Mann started putting out corn at his feeder
this winter, and has tolled in a flock of wild turkeys. First
a handful, then a group of 16. On Wednesday Theo counted 21 turkeys
in the yard, and now Mr. Mann is going through a bag of corn a
week. It's been proposed that turkey lawn ornaments with local
phizes might be an apt installation, so I've been creeping up
on the birds with my camera, to get the shapes right. But they're
dodging me.
|
We had another big storm come through Thursday and Friday, dumping
a load of snow, then crystalline crunchy, then a long drenching
rain. It chilled off behind the storm, and Saturday morning I
went down to the river with my skates and the camera. Figured
I'd skate downriver to Mannland, and sneak up on the feeder from
the woods. The river looked great, all glossy, until I set foot
on it and the rind of new ice collapsed, leaving me sloshing in
ankle-deep soup. So I went home and donned snowshoes. I can go
crosslots to Mr. Mann's, too. Only: the ice in the first gully
I had to cross swallowed my shoes, and filled my boots with icy
slush. Huffed but undaunted, I came home, changed socks, and drove
to the turkey picnic. |
| As soon as I opened the car door, they started to head out from
the feeder. Pretty savvy birds. They stretch up their necks when
you approach, and move off casually, just as fast as you come
on. Like fanciful aspirations, the big birds know how to disappear
in the woods. As you tip-toe behind them, you wonder who's the
biggest turkey. |
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