you are the palette, the brush, the paints, the voice, the one who cares and remembers, you are the one

 

Never fear that there is no creative energy left in you and that your time with the palette is done. I feared the void. I stayed away from my writing area as if it were contagious. Endless space, alone, cold, and without meaning, the void has been around. Sometimes, like a predator, it stays just outside the perimeter of my fire. It is loneliness. My marsh buddy, Mrs. Teale, once asked me, ‘How is your loneliness doing?” She could have smacked me on the hand with a bamboo stick.  Is it odd that my loneliness was a companion? We think we can control time. We track it, set limits for this activity or date memories. It’s just not feasible. The sun, the moon rise, the birds sing aubades, the morning songs, and some even the night songs. Night closes down and shadows caused by the sun disappear with the evening songs. Loneliness is like time. I am uncertain if it is the void but it exists. And it is doing just fine.

Summer pulls you along

 

Summer will have you fall in love with the ocean. That’s why I wanted to be an oceanographer. It took a while, decades, but whose counting, until I realized that I was in love with the whole world. And, that you couldn’t just take care of the ocean, even if you loved it more than anything. You have to recognize that all the waters that connect to the ocean; and all the animals and wildlife, and the people, are a part of a much larger community. No one group is isolated. Everything and everyone touches each other. If one part is not healthy, every part is changed. We might not note this or even recognize it when we give our family histories, but we are nature. We are connected to the world wide web of life. Summer pulls you along, the decades also. Our roots are everywhere. Seen and Unseen.