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August through the woods to the water

We found something sweet on the beach I thought you’d like to see.♥ Feel like taking a walk? Joe and I have walked the same road almost every morning since we discovered this place over twenty years ago; it’s my favorite part of our day. Maybe it’s still too hot where you are, and maybe you just need a timeout and virtual trip to the beach. So come along . . . it’s almost three miles, out and back, easy walk! Musica? ♫ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e64kuEWZxr4 ♫ –click it on, then come with us!

Already we feel the season beginning to change; the first little hints are in the air, lovely cool rain for one thing, a few red leaves; the cicadas are beginning to drown out the sound of the crows (and that’s saying something). But every day, rain, snow, or beautiful August morning, we walk the same walk . . . through the woods . . .

On a dirt road where we’ve memorized every stick, birds nest, and squirrel hole along the way . . .

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These woods are full of wonderful things; from wild turkeys lumbering across the road, to baby squirrels chasing each other up trees, to the patterns the sun makes as it filters through the trees. Nothing grows better here than poison ivy. Nothing turns a prettier red in the fall either. The smell on the road in late summer is pine and hot dirt.

Cardinals flit through the woods…

Wild blueberries and blackberries make a delicious breakfast.

Wild mushrooms are beautiful and scary and we definitely don’t eat them. If you are familiar with the type of scientific minds we have, you understand why we take no chances.

Homemade signs along the road point the way to little houses in the woods. . .

As we walk along, eating blueberries, we get peeks through tree-openings of our destination. . .

And then, suddenly, the trees end . . .

. . . and out into the open sky we go . . .

…to walk along the shore of the pond . . . this is the part of the walk I call “Ireland.”

Hundred-year-old fishing shacks line this narrow spit of land, they have an amazing view of the pond out their front doors →, and the ocean out the back ←. . . you can just see a little peek of the sea.

The houses are right ON the water. In a somewhat scary fashion if you believe in the power of hurricanes which I do.

But they’ve been there a long time; so far, so good.

♥

These houses are all different inside, mostly unfinished with worn wooden floors and open shelves instead of cupboards. They’re not heated, so they get boarded up in the winter.

Beach towels flap from clothelines and front porches. Gulls and Terns dive overhead making all those wonderful beachy noises we love to hear; the waves lap on shore, the smell is wild beach roses, salt, and sand; the aroma of frying bacon floats out to greet us. ♥

Behind this blue door of one of the shacks lives the sweetest-pot-pie-people in the world. We found out, if you walk past someone’s house for enough years, someday they will feel sorry for you and invite you in. Give you coffee, tell you stories, play rummikub with you, and as the years go by, become dear friends.

They even, if you are very lucky, ask you to sit on their porch with them and watch the sun go down.

We stop here and visit as often as possible — but then we go on, to our final destination, to where the road ends and the pond cuts in front of you on it’s way out to sea.

Here’s where we stand in silent awe every morning and drink in the beauty. We come before the beach fills up; while it’s still quiet, just us and the birds. The pond used to be landlocked, but it opened up during a hurricane and boat lovers along the shore could then have boats on the pond and get them through the opening to the sound.

And this is what the tiny beach there looks like on a summer day if you’re on a sailboat going through the opening….little kids, picnic lunches, umbrellas, and beach chairs.

And here’s what it looks like if you’re on board the sailboat!

But I digress . . . this story could go off into a whole other direction! But wouldn’t you like to see what we found on the beach?

I have a photo “collection” of sand castles I’ve happened upon like this. The photo of this one makes three. Because it’s August, and another summer is flying by . . .

. . . we stay awhile and search for beach glass and heart-shaped rocks, but then it’s time to say good bye, turn around and retrace our steps back along the pond, through the woods, popping blueberries in our mouths. And home.

Did you have fun? Do you want to come with us tomorrow? OK, get your shoes on, we go at 7. Be there or be square.♥

Take Time to Dream . . .

There’s an article about how I started writing books in the August issue of Where Women Create Magazine that has this → in it; lately I’m getting mail asking how this card came to be, so I thought it would be a good thing to write about.

♥ ♥ ♥

When I was writing my first book, I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t really expect it to get published; I hoped, but didn’t expect because of the not knowing what I was doing and the fact that book writers I knew about, and me, seemed to have so little in common. They were geniuses and I was just a sad girl (brokenhearted from divorce) alone in a house. But you can tell by this card, I really wanted to write a book and “create future.”

Once I decided to really try, I got so excited about the pages I was painting, it became my dawn-til-dusk obsession. I woke up early, flipped on the TV in the still-dark house, started the water boiling for tea, fed the kitties, and went directly to the watercolors, eager to put onto paper what I’d dreamed the night before. I began to ignore all other aspects of my life. I forgot to get out of my jammies. I opened the fridge and whatever food was there, I ate it, standing up, in refrigerator-bulb light, wiping chicken-leg grease off my hands quickly before racing back to the dining room table (subbing for art table) where my entire life was focused. I could get away with this because I lived alone in my little house; I had recently moved to Martha’s Vineyard from California and didn’t know anyone. So, I was safe from someone coming by who might judge me because my hair was glued to my head from not being washed. I had made up a little fable, about me, and butterfly wings. That creativity was coming to me at night, and it could be washed off in the shower, the magic disappearing like what happens if you take off the powder on a butterfly’s wings. So, yes, I was on the verge of being a disgustingly dirty butterfly.

I kept talking to myself saying where’s the balance, and then went right on being obsessed. Although I was loving the painting, I felt guilty about being so ridiculous about it. I knew what I should do, I was just forgetting to do it and it was making me weary.

So I painted this card to keep myself on the straight and narrow (you can tell it was a long time ago; it was originally on white paper!). I propped it up on my art table and read it every morning. It was a big help to keep me focused. It was my first How to be Happy list, but not the last. My diaries are peppered with them. Later on, I made a “focus card” especially for each book I was doing. Things got much better; I took bubble baths, went for long walks down to the water every day, took my vitamins, and remembered to try to channel the true-heart of Mark Twain. ♥

I took my How to be Happy list out of my diaries and out of the house for the first time when I put one of them in my 1999 calendar. Life still gets crowded with too many wonderful things to do and I still need to be reminded how important it is to take time to dream. ♥