Mudlarking at the Beauport

I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray. Stanley Kunitz

Crows roosting in winter on the Merrimack River, swallows gathering at the end of summer on Plum Island for the trek south. I recently attended a writers’ conference at Shadowcliff ,Grand Lake, Colorado - high in the Rockies. The place was alive with hummingbirds that would dart right up to your face, look you in the eye, take the measure of you, then disappear into the aspen trees. One morning, when I was holding my glasses in one hand while looking at my phone, one of these magic creatures landed on the extended temple of my glasses - a temple! of imaginings of a universe beyond our understanding. Several of us wrote about the hummingbirds - one man, certain his visitation was from his recently deceased wife.

Am I an avid birder with a telescope lens as long as my arm? No. Did I grow up in a family of bird lovers? No. As a matter of fact, no animal ever crossed the Sullivan threshold. Oh, I guess, long before I came along, there was a cat. The story is my mother didn’t like the cat one bit. She leashed it to a doorknob. Could that be true?

I’ve continued the streak of not having an animal, although I’m proud to say I’ve never leashed a cat to a doorknob. My husband loved dogs, but was allergic to them. We did have a dog as newlyweds. I remember complaining to him that every time I looked into the back seat of the car, Tanker was staring at me. I should go to counseling.

Funny that I spent a year painting dogs and their owners for the local paper. There is something so marvelous about the devotion between a dog and his human.

But back to birds, I think it all started with the ostriches that moved in across the river. I went to take their picture, not realizing until afterward that an angry ostrich can kill you with his muscular neck!

A certain ostrich trio looked like snobby interlopers at a fancy ball. When I got home, I painted the trio, then the fancy venue, then decided to add some musicians to the party. Sargent’s ‘El Jaleo’ came to mind. I stole his guitar players.

Ostriches faces make me laugh. They look annoyed, disgusted, impatient with everyone, everything.

And so, a bird-brained theme began to emerge.

I went on a bird bender - ostriches in classical settings - my ‘strange-birds-in-John-Singer-Sargent-paintings’ phase. Not only Sargent, but Degas, Mary Cassat and others. They must all be squawking in their graves.

There is no explaining what happens when the fire of inspiration and excitement is lit! Boundless energy. Those passion-driven jags are what we all live for! No matter what we do!

I was surprised to realize how often birds appeared in my work. I am entranced by birds…not sure exactly why…the soaring above, the knowing, the freedom of flight?

I wrote once about wanting nine lives, from cat to snake to fish to bird.

I leave you today with a piece recently published by Sleet Magazine. More birds.

Mudlarking at the Beauport

     The harbor is still, the air thick with a reluctant fog. A solitary old woman, dressed in a long, dark coat and a red hat, walks along the low tide line, head lowered, inspecting the narrow beach, bending occasionally to pick up shiny little bits of sea glass.  She pecks intently at the ground, inspecting, deciding, pocketing some pieces, throwing others back into the sea. Crows and seagulls drift about, lazily calling to one another, following her closely while keeping watch for any glimmering object or stray clam.  The immortal infinity between water and sky makes slight seem possible. A wind comes up, gentle at first, then stronger, sweeping away the remaining fog.  The lady walks along the water’s edge, propelled by the billowings of her dark coat.  Whenever she stops to look more closely at a glinting something-or-other, the birds, now multiplied, all rush to her, gathering ‘round to see what she has discovered.  She is lost in a cloud of birds.  She seems to be one of them. The birds swirl up in a sudden gust. The lady grabs for her hat too late, the wind spinning it high over the water. She squawks in dismay.  A quick-thinking crow swoops, snatches the hat in its beak, circles back and drops it on the beach at the lady’s feet.  She bends low, places her prized red hat on her head, then arches her back, spreading her arms wide in thanks and jubilation. She looks up now at the swarm of shrieking birds, her coat undulating in appreciation, twisting now in wider and wider gyres. Suddenly she rises with it, up, up into the crow-filled sky and flies off to sea, leaving her red hat on the beach.

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Remember to always be on the lookout for that something unique and special inside yourself , that needs to fly, to see the light of day.

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