Van Gogh

August 10, 2020 / Brett Ann Stanciu / 2 Comments

Late Saturday afternoon in the heat, the girls load up the canoe while I’m lying on the porch reading. I’m so tired I’m near to sleeping, but the girls have packed up dinner. On there way there, my 15-year-old, driving, says, Uh-oh, as the canoe slides ever so slowly to the left on the roof of my car.

Again, so near to sleeping in the heat, I say, You could ease the car over to the side of the road. She does. Her sister does some magic (or enough magic) with the straps, and then we’re on our way again.

Fortunately, we’re not going far.

On #10 Pond in Calais, we paddle out, listening to the loons. In the center, we pause and eat dinner. Eventually, the youngest says, Those loons are surrounding us — mama, daddy, teens. For the longest time, we simply sit there, listening. Then the oldest dips in a paddle and breaks the pond’s glassy surface.

It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.

— Van Gogh

For lovers of Van Gogh — and who isn’t? — here’s a fascinating NYT piece about his presumed final painting. I recommend the free book.

Photo by Molly S./Calais, VT

Crickets

August 8, 2020 / Brett Ann Stanciu / 9 Comments

My daughter’s friend spends the afternoon on our back porch. When I come home from work, the girls are still chatting and doing crafts. The sunlight dapples through the box elders. Around us, tomatoes ripen.

We are ensconced in porch life, our half-covered deck redolent with drying garlic, the nasturtiums dangling their delicate, impossibly beautiful blossoms from hanging baskets. In the mornings, we read Henry IV, Part One aloud with my parents in Santa Fe, my sister and nephews in Virginia, circling back to Falstaff’s words — “A plague of sighing and grief! It blows a man up like a bladder.” Beside me, my 15-year-old rubs a finger over the scraps on her knees from blackberry brambles.

August is the sunshine month in Vermont, the season of wild berries, of warm lakes, of flowers in excess, of lying on the grass as the stars come out, of a great long pause before autumn sets in and winter grinds her teeth.

Our deck, our house, and garden might as well be the whole world, with the turkey vultures silently circling overhead, the wood thrush singing sweetly in the ravine. Before dinner, I toss a withering bouquet of giant zinnias in the compost and cut a fresh handful for our dinner table. August is our rainbow month. I know my daughter’s desire for school, for soccer, for this future none of us seem able to imagine — but long may August last, please.

The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last for ever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year – the days when summer is changing into autumn – the crickets spread the rumour of sadness and change.

— E.B. White

Rain for Dinner

August 5, 2020 / Brett Ann Stanciu / 11 Comments

In a steady rain, my daughter sets the table for dinner. For months, we’ve eaten on our deck. I suggest, as I’m sautéing onions, that she set the dining room table.

Giggling, she lays plates on the glass table outside, sets out forks, and then digs in the drawer for napkins.

Really? I say, napkins? They’ll get wet.

I don’t mind eating outside by myself, she answers, still giggling.

This has been a long day, a long however many weeks that have widened into months of coronavirus, that will likely be a long year or years. We’d planned to be in Maine these days, soaking up sunlight and the sand, but quarantining upon return isn’t feasible. She knows this; she doesn’t argue.

Still laughing, she takes a jar of pickles and sets it on the table. From inside, I see raindrops bounce off its unopened top. When she comes back, I say, Don’t forget cups. I’m eating outside with you, too.

All who have achieved excellence in art possess one thing in common; that is, a mind to be one with nature, throughout the seasons.

― Matsuo Bashō

My daughter’s companion

Wilderness

August 3, 2020 / Brett Ann Stanciu / 12 Comments

On a humid Sunday, we walk into Peacham Bog. When I suggest this, my youngest clarifies, A bog? That’s your idea of fun?

It’s Class I wetlands, I answer — as if this is even the remotest tease of fun.

What does lure her is the car keys. Driving there, I mention, Hey, you should always check the gas gauge before you leave home.

What’s the point? she answers. I always drive with you.

We’re driving over a particularly lousy piece of pavement then, and she carefully avoids a pothole — diligent learner.

I answer, But you won’t always drive with me. Isn’t this the whole point here? Because before long you’ll be driving on your own?

She takes that in — thinking over what’s obvious but of course isn’t — that she won’t be a child forever, that even as we’re talking she’s hurtling toward adulthood — a glacial pace for her, a rocket pace for me.

All that hike into the bog and back — exquisitely beautiful, bordering ethereal with its wildness — she carries those keys in her backpack. I can imagine she’s thinking, and I won’t be driving to any flipping Class I wetlands, but she humors me.

But I did not want to go,
not yet, nor knew what to do
if I should stay, for how

in that great darkness could I explain
anything, anything at all.

— Hayden Carruth, The Cows at Night

Photo by Molly S.

August 1

August 1, 2020 / Brett Ann Stanciu / 4 Comments

This morning, the mist lies in the valley. Through the open windows, a coolness steals in with the dawn. For this summer, my daughter informs me, the greatest heat has passed.

July gave us thirty-one gorgeous, sun-drenched beautiful days. Now, on the first of August, I’m wearing jeans near my open window, as my daughters’ cat keeps a hungry eye on a darting goldfinch.

My teenager aches for September and school; I think, slow this down. School may not open its doors this September, maybe not in October, maybe not at all this year. In our little Vermont oasis, that seems theoretical at times. On this first of August, I think again of Hayden Carruth’s poetry.

The world is a
complex fatigue.

Indeed. For this day, green bean picking, handfuls of zinnias, the cosmos as tall as my shoulders, the nasturtiums nestled in the tomatoes. For this day, flowers.

Hayden Carruth

Laughter

July 29, 2020July 29, 2020 / Brett Ann Stanciu / 7 Comments

Pandemic notwithstanding, the car I’m selling needs to be inspected. Since who the heck wants to talk through masks, I call the mechanic where I’ve left this car for a week or so. What’s a week, anyway?

The soft-spoken mechanic, who’s been undercharging me for years, quietly explains what needs to be done. Then he asks me, What do you think of that? Is that okay?

I’m leaning over the back deck railings, staring into the tangle of wild raspberry canes. I answer, What I think is it’s 2020, and I don’t like any of this.

He busts out laughing. I hate to say it, Brett, but we’re so fucked. This has only been going on since March.

I know. What’s going to happen in November?

I’m laughing so hard at this point; there’s so nothing funny about any of this — pretty much nothing funny about 2020 at all — but we keep laughing and laughing.

Then I say, It’s just a car. Fix it. I’ll sell it. That’s small potatoes.

And — it’s still Vermont July — with a creamy half-moon and endless cucumbers.