On Finding Inspiration in Unexpected Places....

So, let's just say that I've been a little lacking in inspiration lately, and I needed a healthy dose in order to complete a grant application for a few weeks at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson this summer to dive in to the Paul Strand archives for my Maine/Moderns project about modernists in Georgetown, Maine. The problem with my office at school [besides the chilly temperature] is that I am surrounded by coursework--things to read and grade, lectures to write, recommendation letters to do, knocks at the door, department business ad infinitum. The problem with home is that I don't have a good work space set up yet [coming soon to a formal living room=Libby's office] and I'm easily distracted by home improvement projects and my extensive tivo list. So, where to write [or how to find yet more ways to make excuses while not writing]?

On my way home from school tonight, ca. 7:30pm, I was hungry and decided to stop at the Gorham House of Pizza for a sub. I brought in my bag, took out my laptop while I was waiting for dinner, and, while the TV was blaring ESPN's "Sportscenter" and the radio was playing any variety of John Mayer, Kelly Clarkson, etc. I started typing. 90 minutes, 2 diet cokes, and an eggplant parmesan sub later, the CCP application was complete--footnotes and all. I wasn't expecting to work there, but in a laminate booth, free from MY distractions, and free from wireless internet, I got inspired, and then just went with it. I'll proofread and send it off tomorrow--a healthy 10 days before the deadline.

So, maybe this is why I always see people on laptops in coffee houses. Maybe I should have learned some more lessons from the Kertesz exhibit "On Reading" [see earlier post]. I need to be caught writing. Not grading, not reading, but writing. I'm going to work on being caught more often. And I'm going to seek out some new laminate booths. It doesn't have to be a quiet place, but it has to be free from my constant distractions and/or reminders thereof. And that, my friends, is a lesson I've been needing to figure out for quite some time now. Free from excuses, it's time to start writing again. We'll see what else becomes clear after tomorrow's yoga class.

Columbus Day Weekend in Five Islands, ME

Reid State Park, Georgetown, ME
F. Holland Day House, Five Islands, ME
View from the back porch of Day House

It almost felt like Indian Summer in Maine this weekend, and you could've sworn it might have been early September--weather in the mid-60s, clear blue skies, and a warm breeze. Steve took Friday off and we headed up to Georgetown, ME, a small town outside of Bath where the F. Holland Day House is located. I've been coming to the Day house ever since I was researching my dissertation on F. Holland Day in 2001 and met the owner. I wrote a lot of my dissertation there, and it still serves as sort of a touchstone for me--it's one of those places that I walk in and just feel like I am home. It's a lovely and inspiring place [as evidenced in the photographs above], used now in the summers as a healing retreat for women with cancer. The environment always gets my creative juices flowing, and I wrote a grant proposal to work on a Maine photographer--Chansonetta Stanley Emmons--while I was up there--and also went treasure hunting in the Little Good Harbor (behind the house). As you can see in the photograph below, I found lots! I have been collecting seaglass ever since I was little, and I found some great pieces at low tide, as well as some beautiful old pottery shards, which are the real prize of any beachcomber. They've already found homes on various windowsills at home.



We spent most of the weekend outside enjoying the weather and the landscape. The leaves were in full color--some stunning oranges, reds and yellows and we took advantage of our proximity to Reid State Park [about 1/2 mile from the Day house] and went and walked the beach on Friday and Saturday. On Saturday, our friends the Delcourts who live in Portland drove up and we all watched their 2-year old daughter Nola fill endless buckets with ice cold seawater only to dump it out and do it all over again. I loved the water like that when I was little--still do. We took the Delcourts down to Five Islands Wharf where lunch was being served for the last time until next summer. The dock was crowded with leaf peepers and tourists hungry for lobster and other seafood, and we sat on a picnic table overlooking the harbor eating our lunch and enjoying the company for ages.

After the Delcourts headed back to Portland, Steve and I decided that we would go and play some disc golf [frisbee golf] at a local course in Brunswick [Enmon Field]. It was a great course, and we spent a few hours hiking through the woods chasing frisbees and hitting targets. It's a great sport if you've never played--same principle as regular golf, only with frisbees. Greens fees tend to be a good deal cheaper ($5 round) and it's something we started playing in Massachusetts a few years ago. We also have a great course about 10 minutes from our house in Gorham. Come up some weekend, and we'll take you out to play ;).

We headed home early Sunday afternoon so Steve could get his weekly football fix, and now it's Monday, and back to work. I'm off to revise a conference paper to submit as a potential article for a book being published in conjunction with the conference--about Transatlantic Women Writers. WIsh me luck! Then it's on to making up Midterms for next week. It's hard to believe it's midterm already, but I'm not complaining ;). Things are about to get alot busier, and I'm just grateful for the October respite that is/was Fall Break. I needed to clear my head, and thanks to our jaunt to Five Islands--mission accomplished!

October Break, Sigh.

Anne Brigman, Japonesque Tidal Islands on the Coast of Maine
Paul Strand, 2 views of Iris, Georgetown, ME

"I will look at cliffs and clouds
with quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass
and the grass rise."
--"Afternoon on a Hill," Edna St. Vincent Millay

I've never taught anywhere that's had an October Break before. Even though it's only two days, and one of them is Columbus Day, I'm kind of excited. We just finished week 6--the best of intentions from the start of the semester are beginning to fade--absences increase, eyes look a little sleepier in class--this is the perfect time to regroup. And so, I will take Millay's wise advice this weekend. I promise to look with quiet eyes up in Five Islands where we're off to tomorrow. I'm excited to gaze off into the distance, walk by the ocean, and go to the place in this world that makes me happiest--F. Holland Day's House. Time just seems to stop there; my whole body relaxes when I walk through the door. I don't think it's an accident that so many photographers found inspiration there over the years. It's one of the few places I've been [and I've been a lot of places] where the environment can so quickly shape a mood of peace of contentment. So, with two grant applications and an article to finish, I hope to be inspired a bit, and to get some work done that's not a lecture, or paper assignment, or a big pile of essays to grade. I just want to read and write and get lost in it. I'll take some pictures and post them at the end of the weekend so you can see why I love it there so much. Off to bed!

Obscure Wedding Readings and Mindfulness.

Gentle reader, It was 38 degrees in Gorham this morning when I got in the outback to traipse off to school. Brrrr. It's only October 6th, and, since my school has some--how shall we say this nicely--"fiscal challenges," they've decided not to spring for heat just yet. Good thing I wore a wool poncho (which served mostly as a portable blanket for the better part of the day). It might be time to dust off the space heater. I must admit to sneakily turning on the heat for the first time at home this evening while Steve is away working in Massachusetts--not too high--61 degrees--just enough to ease the chill. It's working; I'm thawing.

I spent the better part of the weekend in Providence, Rhode Island attending the nuptials of Mark, one of my best college buddies, and his lovely bride Stephanie. I was asked to do a reading at the wedding and I must say, although I'm not typically one for bible verses [being a somewhat lapsed Catholic]--it was a particularly lovely reading [no 1 Corinthians here] and so I'll quote from it below.

From the Letter to the Hebrews:

Brothers and sisters:
Let mutual love continue.
Do not neglect hospitality, for through it some have unknowingly entertained angels.
Be mindful of prisoners as if sharing their imprisonment,
and of the ill-treated as of yourselves, for you are also in the body.
Let marriage be honored among all and the marriage bed be kept undefiled.
Let your life be free from love of money but be content with what you have,
for thus he has said, I will never forsake or abandon you.
Thus we may say with confidence: the Lord is my helper and I shall not be afraid.

Maybe it's because I practiced it a few times and read it over a lot [slowly] so I could say it with meaning [the priest asked me at the rehearsal if I read for a living--I told him close enough--I stand in front of students all day and lecture], but it struck me as good advice for a marriage/partnership, and advice particularly relevant for our tumultuous financial times. I like the idea of letting mutual love continue. I'm a fan of hospitality. But most of all, I needed the message of being content with what you have. Being content with what we have is, at times, more difficult than it should be--at least for me. Being new homeowners [again] saddled with some debt from school, our first house, and my time as a grad student, we're sticking to a pretty tight budget. My husband is so good about it, but I catch myself resenting it sometimes. Old spending habits die hard, I suppose, but doing this reading on Saturday gave me pause. I have a lot--a great marriage,a wonderful family, good friends, a lovely home in a place I am growing to love more and more each day, a job and some financial security in this terrible market, more books than I could ever read, my health--the list goes on, but I'll spare you the rest of it. I should be content; I'm working on it ;). And I'm working on being more mindful. I'm even listening to some heady new age music while blogging and thinking that I really need to find a good yoga class to attend at least once a week.

This Columbus Day weekend we're heading up to the F. Holland Day House in Georgetown, ME for the weekend [the summer home of the photographer I write about] and I look forward to using my little "October Break" as a time to get re-inspired to write and to just soak in the rocky coastal landscape of Little Good Harbor that served as inspiration and muse to a whole cadre of artists and writers in the early-1900s. I plan on doing some long walks, some serious camera work as well as some writing. The leaves are turning here [too quickly] and my eyes formulate photographs wherever I look these days. I need to savor the fall because it comes and goes so quickly here. Time for bed. Good Night.