cottage

The fall is my favourite season and this year we have been having a month of perfect weather in Ontario. Because there have been no winds or rain, the leaves are still on the trees. And the sight is magnificent. I was exploring the back bays of our lake in the kayak over the past few days. And really, no matter what time of day, and no matter what direction I faced, the views on the lake were spectacular.

I am reading The Rise and Fall of Great Powers by Tom Rachman. Almost all my time, apart from paddling on the lake, was spent with it. It is a wide-ranging and captivating tale, one I recommend you try. It has lots to say about family ties, friendship and survival–and it has one or two characters to add to your lifetime list of favourites.

I am sitting on the screened porch at the cottage, still marvelling at my access to the world from this little piece of granite. A message from Kenya popped up on my screen a few minutes ago. My mind boggles. Unlike my son who feels harrassed by his emails when he is here and is a bit compulsive about checking, I feel I can open this window to the world when it works for me and glance out. This morning the note from Kenya and the weekly message from Brainpickings.

But that’s not why I am writing this morning. I am writing to say belated thank yous. First, a big big thank you to Wendie Scott Davis, who during her wide-cut/primitives class at Trent Univeristy, sold loonie strips to support the rug hookers in Matangwe Kenya. The class raised  $63.00!! This will go to materials, used t-shirts etc. that I hope to buy in the markets of Nairobi this January. We are working to make the venture sustainable and to source the materials locally. That said, if you have burlap or hooks or fine cotton jersey t-shirts etc. please send me an email. You can find the info under contact on the right hand side of this post.

The second thank you goes to one of the blog readers. He sent me an email telling me that he had been inspired by the blog and my attempts at sketching and, as a result,  had signed up for Sketchbook Skool. It’s always wonderful to hear from blog readers and to know that something you said had an influence.  He writes: “Funny you talk about seeing things in a different way, on my way to work the last couple of weeks since I started sketching I see shapes and color everwhere, where before I only saw things and objects…SO exciting.”  Very exciting. And I am about to start Semester 2 which is called Seeing, and I’m pretty excited too. More on that later in the week.

Our cottage is on an island, a small island, on a big lake where the properties can only be accessed by boat. Even on a busy holiday weekend like this one, it is relatively quiet. A return to the cottage is a return to the past. Here the life jackets from our two and four year old sons (now well into their 30’s) still hang in the boathouse and New Yorkers from twenty years ago hide at the bottom of  the magazine rack. At a cottage you can ignore the terrifying changes in the world and in yourself. Because this one place, this one lump of granite with its wooden cabin, does seem to be as it always was.

Of course, that sense of permanence and security is illusory. This year we have cell service on the lake which brings the world in. The news is delivered to ‘our door’ just like home. But it also means I can connect with you. So here is a little tour of the cottage and some of the early pieces of hooking that I rediscover each year. The Maud Lewis was hooked by my mother and the fish, one of my first pieces, is a pattern from Christine Little of Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. The other two were doodles in wool, the one beside Maud, a record of each day in October 2007. Just looking at that piece, like my sketch above, evokes the feelings and the thoughts running through me as it came to be. This is  power of creativity, and that is something that doesn’t change.

September is the best time on the lake. Long paddles in the kayak. Clear skies. Harvest moon. Loons calling. A plaintive beauty.

I always think of AJM Smith’s The Lonely Land:

             This is the beauty 

             of strength

             broken by strength

            and still still strong.

One of the very best things for me at the cottage is kayaking as the sun goes down. The lake is generally quiet, but in the evenings I have it to totally to myself. It is glorious.