Praise the Light of Late November

As we approach Thanksgiving, we are filled with gratitude for our lives full of love and family and friends and for the beauty of the earth.  We are especially thankful for the partnership and trust of the teachers and administrators in schools where we have worked, and for all of you out there who take the time to read our posts.  

We have been taking regular long walks around our town appreciating the various views and small touches that people leave to brighten the days of passersby.

We have watched this little free library grow from one stand to three.  Now one includes a collection of food goods to leave or to take. 

This house on a small alley that connects two parts of town always has something of beauty to behold as a gift for those who notice. 

In Community Chorus we are singing a piece entitled The Light of Late November.  It is a poem by Barbara Crooker composed as a choral piece in four parts by Dale Trumbore.  I include it here for your contemplation. 

Praise the light of late November,
the thin sunlight that goes deep in the bones.
Praise the crows chattering in the oak trees;
though they are clothed in night, they do not
despair. Praise what little there’s left:
the small boats of milkweed pods, husks, hulls,
shells, the architecture of trees. Praise the meadow
of dried weeds: yarrow, goldenrod, chicory,
the remains of summer. Praise the blue sky
that hasn’t cracked yet. Praise the sun slipping down
behind the beechnuts, praise the quilt of leaves
that covers the grass: Scarlet Oak, Sweet Gum,
Sugar Maple. Though darkness gathers, praise our crazy
fallen world; it’s all we have, and it’s never enough.

We wish you all a heartwarming and blessed Thanksgiving,

Louise and Ashley

Color and Light

Bike Ride in Weybridge, VT, October, 2024

We recently returned to Vermont after two weeks away.  I was worried that we might miss the color, but as it turned out, we didn’t.  This has been a glorious, splendid, explosion of color kind of week.  I have felt uplifted, amazed, transported, and grateful to be surrounded by glowing light and an array of crimsons, oranges, yellows, golds, yellow greens and dark greens all around us. I can’t get myself to go inside. We have biked, hiked, worked outside in our garden, walked, gazed, cooked out at the fire pit and savored every moment.  From dawn to sunset of these blue sky, mild days we have forest bathed in the glory of fall in Vermont.

Hiking Philo Ridge, Charlotte, Vermont, October, 2024

There is an exhibit at the Middlebury College Museum of Art now curated by Katy Smith Abbott entitled An Invitation to Awe.  The Middlebury College Campus, the campus newspaper, describes the exhibit this way…

The exhibit showcases the various ways in which awe is experienced in people’s lives through the categorization and organization of the selected pieces. The awe of the natural world, awe through acts of humanity, and awe that is sacred or religious. This is how “An Invitation to Awe” invites its audience to consider the exhibit’s core questions of “where and how is awe most prolifically experienced?” Where and how do we find awe in our lives? What do we consider to be moments of awe?

Our neighbor’s front yard maple tree

Children naturally approach the world with curiosity, wonder, and awe. If we are lucky, we can accompany them, nurture those qualities in them and in us, and learn from them.

Granddaughter Delilah, age four, creating a nature journal at her request 

I have been filled with awe with every breath for a full week. I am full of gratitude to live in this place on earth and to return here.

When I am Among the Trees

by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, “Stay awhile.”

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It's simple,” they say,

“and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled

with light, and to shine.”

View from Mount Philo, October, 2024

The First Day of School

Weybridge Elementary School, Weybridge, Vermont

I love seeing children peeking out of doors or skipping in the driveways along our road, waiting for the school bus to arrive. It is September and the first day of school has happened! As a teacher of so many years, for so many Septembers, I was also just beginning to get into the swing of things about now.

First Day of School for our grandchildren, Delilah and Asher

Now, three of our grandchildren are off and running in school. Asher and Delilah started 7th and 4th grade in Massachusetts and Jack started kindergarten in New Jersey. Hard to believe, as it seems not that long ago that our own sons were starting up a new grade in elementary school in Weybridge, VT.

First Day of School for our grandson, Jack

Mostly, this time of year coming around again reminds me of how the years go swiftly by, and the seasons turn. Everything changes, and yet, so much also stays the same. The leaves start to turn russet and red; the apples ripen and fall; the autumn crickets sing; the grasses turn golden; the zinnias bloom in profusion.

Backyard zinnias

I was reminded of all this last Sunday when I attended a church service at the Congregational Church of Middlebury where Ronnie Romano is now the Director of Music. I sang in the choir under Ronnie’s direction at the Champlain Valley Unitarian Church last year. I feel at home in many churches and have often attended services at the Congregational Church. I was eager to see Ronnie in his new place. The senior pastor, Andrew Nagy-Benson, introduced Ronnie to the congregation saying, “It’s your first day of school.”

I am lucky enough to have joined the Middlebury Community Chorus this year where Ronnie is the director. Last night, at my first rehearsal, I felt as if it was my first day of school. I am overjoyed to be able to sing under Ronnie’s direction. I am enchanted by the music that we are singing. I was fortunate to sit next to music director, composer, and celebrated musician, Dorothy Robson, who sings every note perfectly like a bell so that I can follow and easily learn my alto part. What a joy.

I hope that all children everywhere feel lucky to be in school, feel engaged and in love with learning, feel supported in learning in the way that works well for them. I hope that they feel joyful.

Hurray for September and for the first day of a new year of learning and growing on our beautiful planet earth.

Backyard zinnias, gouache on mixed media paper, by Louise

The Saving Grace of the Arts: The Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival

The tenth Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival, (MNFF), concluded last Sunday.  We have supported this festival and attended it every year since it began. In 2018, Ashley’s brother, Steve, screened his film here, filmed by Tommy Hyde, entitled, Wild and Precious, about growing up gay in the 60s and 70s.  Steve died in August of 2019 of brain cancer. 

Every year the festival team selects wonderful films from many applicants from all over the world…some shorts, some feature length, some documentaries, and some narrative films.  The special thing about this five-day Festival is that it supports and opens the door to first-and second-time filmmakers. It also brings in acclaimed directors, costume designers, writers, and cinematographers as honorees and shows their films. This year Oliver Stone was here and spoke after his films that were featured: Platoon, Wallstreet and Chapter 2 of a documentary, An Untold Story of the United States .

The themes of the Festival this year were endurance and perseverance.  The films that I most loved and appreciated, all documentaries, focused on creating beauty and joy during terrible life situations. I saw the arts again as providing humanity, dignity, purpose, and joy in the most difficult of circumstances.

The Quilters tells the story of a group of men in a maximum-security prison in rural Missouri who spend their days designing and sewing birthday quilts for every foster child in the surrounding counties. It is moving to hear their stories and to see their dedication to the mathematics and the aesthetics of making quilts from beginning to end.  It is inspiring to enter the sewing room with them and to witness the pride and collaboration among this group, some in prison for life.  The website tells us: THE QUILTERS provides us with a unique opportunity to observe how art can restore an individual’s view of themselves and others. 

From The Quilters and the MNFF website

Sierra Lion Refugee All Stars follows a group of musicians who make some instruments out of throw away hub caps, eventually find other instruments, and start to play together and for others.  They are refugees from a brutal civil war in Sierra Leone in 1999-2002 who flee to neighboring Guinea. We see them rise from sadness and find a way to put their nightmares aside by making music and bringing it to others. They eventually tour other refugee camps with the support of the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.  Witnessing displaced and suffering people begin to find joy in music and dance is uplifting beyond words. The cinematographer of this film is Andy Mitchell, a filmmaker living in Middlebury who was honored for his work at the Festival.

From Sierra Lion Refugee All Stars and the MNFF website

Playing the Changes-Tracking Darius Brubeck documents a period in the life of Darius Brubeck, son of famous jazz musician, Dave Brubeck. Darius and his wife Cathy decide to brave living in South Africa during one of the most challenging periods of Apartheid. Their mission was to bring talented black and white musicians together to make music. And they succeed.  Making music triumphs over prejudice.  We witness again the uplifting power of the arts to transcend boundaries, to ignite purpose, to bring dignity and joy to everyone.  The film was released in April of 2024 and was written and directed by Michiel ten Kleij who participated in a Q and A on the phone from the Netherlands.

From Playing the Changes-Tracking Darius Brubeck and MNFF website

We are grateful to MNFF for all it brings to the community of Middlebury.  We are grateful to Lloyd Komesar who conceived of the idea of the festival and has worked tirelessly to bring it to this successful place.  We are grateful for Laurie Patton, president of Middlebury College, and other loyal, local sponsors for the full support of the festival since its inception.

We would not see these films if it were not for the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival. The films broaden and deepen our perspective and they change the way we see the world, every time.  

This Summer, Keep a Sketchbook

From my mother’s sketchbook, July 18, 1959

I grew up with a mother who loved to draw and paint.  She always had materials for me also, including a sketchbook.  We drew and painted together often, especially in the summers when we escaped the heat of the midwest for the coast of Maine.  My mother kept sketchbooks when she traveled. The little vase of nasturtiums above was painted 65 years ago today!

I was influenced by Frederick Franck who wrote The Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation, and Clare Walker Leslie, author of Keeping a Nature Journal. Together they helped me discover that drawing what we see and where we are is a practice that brings us into the present completely, and leads us to settle in and notice details, patterns, and miracles of life right in front of our nose.

On Puerto Rico’s island of Culebra

This practice takes us out of our endless thoughts and preoccupations.  I love what artist, Hannah Sessions says about sketching as a daily practice. “Regardless of how I might be feeling about my circumstance, or myself, the question is asked again and again…what is being seen? What is being known? Daily informal sketching prompts noticing and noticing is a way out of self.”

I have brought drawing to almost all the teachers we have worked with other the years. I want them to open to the power, pleasure, and learning that comes with this practice. I want them to offer this world to their students in a way that enhances and enriches almost any subject area. Drawing opens up a whole world and way of seeing and being that is truly a gift. 

Drawing birds during Covid lockdown

Amy Tan, author of The Backyard Bird Chronicles says, You learn to carry a little sketchbook with a little pencil in your pocket or your bag and you notice something and you just do it. You make a little note and you do a little drawing and you’ve just saved that day for the future.  I love that.

Last March I took an online course with Vermont artist, Susan Abbott, Traveling with your Sketchbook.

I was inspired by a book that she wrote entitled An Artist’s Pilgrimage, about her walk on the Camino de Santiago from France to Spain. Her book is filled with her sketches and watercolors made along the way. During the the course I took with her, she said,

Drawing is a gift to yourself. You create a narrative of your thoughts, feelings, sensations…You absorb an experience in a way that you don’t otherwise. Looking at your sketchbook takes your right back to your experience. You have to do it to learn it.  Any way that you do it is good.

One of Susan Abbott’s homework assignments: draw a favorite shoe

Susan Abbott challenged us to make quick drawings and add color at home. She also challenged us to draw people and to sometimes have more than one vignette on a page.

Ashley and I were lucky enough to spend most of last April in the Luberon region of France.  Often Ashley and I would stop in our explorations of villages and decide to draw the same view. In the sketches below, we were in the town of Cucuron on bikes that we had rented.

A street in Cucuron, France, by Louise and Ashley

If you haven’t yet, do what Amy Tan suggests. Put a little notebook and a pencil and pen in you bag and notice the beautiful summer world around us. It will take you out of worrying about our challenging world and bring you into the present.

Frederick Frank wrrote:

What I have not drawn, I have never really seen. Once you start drawing an ordinary thing, a flower, a leaf, a face, you realize how extraordinary it is. While I draw, I keep the eyes focused and allow the pencil to follow what the eye perceives. Don’t let your eye wander from what it is seeing and keep your pencil moving on the paper. Feel that with the point of the pencil you are caressing the contours and circumference of the leaf in front of you. Just let your hand move.

This is all you need for instructions to get started.

In her book, An Artist’s Pilgrimage, Susan Abbott writes:

The loveliness of this countryside keeps slowing me down. And finally forces me to stop and take a longer look. Bushes tinted alizarin crimson, white clouds of wild apple trees, celadon green fields. I take off my pack and pull out sketchbook and pens.

Stand still on the gravel path, draw this April morning. Fix it in heart and memory.

Phoebe’s cabanon in Saignon, France by Louise and Ashley