Late summer now, and
it seems that each of my running journeys makes its way to a shore: hard-packed
mud or pebbled bar along the Winooski
River; sandy urban beaches along Lake
Champlain at Burlington.
And in these places I keep meeting up with the sandpiper—that fleet,
long-legged shorebird with plumage the pale, summer-washed gray and sandy dun
of distant ocean beaches, that pealing ripple of song as the bird runs, feet
wet, wings lifted up and held back, along the light-silvered shore.
I’ve come to feel a
connection with the sandpiper this summer. I, too, have been solitary and
shore-exploring, drawn to liminal places: meetings of water, land, moving
light.
And as the summer reaches fullness and ripening, I feel the
sense of something finished, of movement on— no, toward— a different horizon.
The time alone has
been time well-spent—long runs for meditation, contemplation, motion, memory.
This has fed the work I’ve made: the long sound art composition THE HARBOR AT
DAWN, the series of Lake Champlain watercolor paintings
that began with sketches made beginning last summer and that I finished this
week. I feel myself carrying a sense of completion; of deep, deep feelings
recognized, engaged with, and acted upon-- with focus and discipline; with patience,
effort, and love.
Also, all that time
for reading. Just enough band practices, gigs, shifts at the Kellogg-Hubbard
Library, and dinners with Robin to keep me from total isolation. I am grateful
to have gone deep this summer. I have come out different.
There is still a
sense of uncertainty about major things ahead—domicile in particular. But the school
year begins anew in less than two weeks, and I look forward to the intensity of
middle school energy. There are lots of gigs on the near horizon, and singing
and playing steel guitar with the great musicians I have the privilege to work
with is an utter joy. And my creative decks are cleared for beginning draft
three of Dutra mystery novel number 4, with first-readers’ notes compiled and partially
contemplated—ready to roll sometime in the fall.
Back now, to that late-summer sandpiper, running
on hard-packed sand alongside blue-green water. The breaking white of small
waves; a hazed August sky above. A ringing call rises, sounding above the white
noise of those waves. The shorebird runs, wings swept back, held high, now
lifting, lifting--lifted…
Journal entry and
watercolor sketch by KMB, August 2013.
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