Hi-Ho Silver

This is Poseidon as a stallion. I decided to paint it in order to give meaning to the herd of mares. It will be hung to the left of the long painting. I had some good news today about the show. Marlys was at the gallery when I went there today to check up on the progress of the cleaning. She has had a show in Machias, so I was able to ask about things I have been worrying about. It turns out that the University does the invitations, gives the reception, and hangs all the work. Apparently all we artists have to do is present our work and sit back. I have been thinking about all those details and feeling very pressured. Now I am relaxed to think that all I have to do is finish my painting and all will be done.

I have failed to write about Alice for awhile, mostly because I was trying not to think about her. I have been in touch, though, and she is recovering from surgery she had over a week ago. All seems to be going as anticipated and it is expected she will be back at work in a few weeks. I am suspending as much emotion and anticipation as I can, busying myself with anything I can think of, looking in other corners of my life for places my mind can roam. It has taken me to unexpected places, which I do not trust. When one runs away in panic, one doesn't stop to look where one is going.

Dead Dolls, or Jeannette's Memorial

I was cleaning out the small room at the end of the hall and remembered Jeannette's (my mother)dolls. She collected them and made some herself. When she died I sold a lot of them, but out of sentimentality I kept a few. They were in a box under the desk upstairs. I decided to make a kind of shrine, or memorial to her by using the dolls to decorate the table under the stairs, in the downstairs hall. I picked up the box, which was quite large, and carried it to the top of the stairs. As I started down, my foot slipped and I began to fall. With amazing presence of mind I let the box go and saved myself, grabbing for the banister. My own descent was only three steps, but the box went tumbling down the entire flight. Dolls flew everywhere. The only one that survived in tact was my own baby doll, Carol, which I received as a Christmas present when I was six. She is made of rubber, now as yellow as a dandelion, and cloth. The rest of the dolls, made of porcelain, smashed against the stairs and the hall floor, leaving bits of themselves along the way. Even the tiny, antique dolls lost their arms. The doll on the right in the picture, my favorite because of her heft, was beheaded. If that weren't enough, her eyes sank out of sight leaving nothing but dark holes.

Well, if the thought counts, putting them out was one of the nicest ideas I have had concerning my mother since she died. Nevertheless, I ended up destroying what remained of her precious belongings. I have never liked dolls particularly, but she loved them. They were the ideal for her, replicas of the best part of real children. They could be dressed up and played with, but demanded nothing. They were beautiful. She placed them in cradles and high chairs with frilly pillows and blankets. She sewed and knit clothes for them. She bought toys.

Jeannette loved to care for helpless things that depended entirely on her for survival. I remember her nursing three newborn kittens, standing in for the mother cat who had disappeared, until they were on their own. She loved infants. But with both cats and babies, she became indifferent or hostile to them once they began to strike off on their own. She interpreted their independence, no matter how minute, as rejection. She could not take rejection, and man, could that woman hold a grudge. She went to her grave hating pretty much everyone she ever knew. Rest in peace, Jeannette. We have all forgiven you by now. My heart was in the right place when I decided to get out your dolls.

Hungry Birds, Snow in Spring

Toni gave me some bird seed that she wasn't going to use and I filled up my own feeders with it. I had seen a lot of finches and chickadees at my neighbor's feeder, which is hanging from my lilac bush by the deck. I thought that it wouldn't be much of a reach for their tiny brains to notice my offerings just a few feet away. I had hardly closed the door when the birds flocked to my feeders. What a wonderful sight to have so many birds out there. The trees are just loaded with them, taking turns diving for the food.

I used the telephoto lens to take the picture through my dirty window. The house in the background looks very close, but isn't. The red in the front is a geranium bloom on the sill. The snow on the ground is the result of several Spring storms that are assaulting the area as if to make up for the short Winter. It is like a battle between the seasons, with warm sunny days followed by snow and wind.

David came back yesterday from his winter in Florida. It was wonderful to see him and we had dinner together. Once he arrives with the Spring, it seems almost as if he never left. I miss him when he's not here, though, and his absence seems long. He heralds the beginning of a new season that is as different from winter as fire is from ice. Eastport's cycle of life is comfortingly predictable. It is extreme at its opposite poles, asking us year-round residents to go along with such changes of climate and activity that we could be travelling to different counties. It is we who are stationary, though, while the world moves. Nowhere in the country does the revolution of the earth seem more obvious, nowhere does it give more richness and variety, as it does here. We are delighted with the first snow, and with the first robin equally.

Patrick the Cute