Rosslyn Redux

Tag: Poetics of Place

  • Leaping & Untethering

    Leaping & Untethering

    Rosslyn Boathouse, by Bill Amadon
    Rosslyn Dock House, by Bill Amadon

    In the spring and summer of 2006, when Susan and I took a leap of faith and made the decision to pursue Rosslyn as our future home, it was apparent to both of us that we were biting off considerably more than we could chew.

    Dream big. Dream a little bigger. And then leap!

    From leaping capriciously, optimistically, idealistically, and oh-so romantically into this Rosslyn adventure 16 years ago to an eventual and inevitable untethering at some point in the future, Susan and I have courted an unconventional but rewarding existence. In a sense we’ve never stopped leaping.

    Now with 20/20 hindsight (and a decade and a half of years of lessons learned and humility earned) I’m comfortable admitting that we got in over our heads. Waaayyy over our heads. Our skillset and our checkbook were too lean; our romantic outlook and our self confidence were too stout. Needless to say, that’s a fraught combination. But I wouldn’t change a single thing. Well, maybe a few things…

    I envisioned Rosslyn’s rehabilitation as an adventure, a risky adventure, but an adventure well worth the risk (and the 100% investment it would take, not the least of which was our undivided time and energy.) Rosslyn would become our love affair, our work and play, our vocation and avocation, and — despite a resolute decision early in our relationship to embrace unclehood and aunthood while remaining childfree — Rosslyn would become our surrogate child.

    In due course, heck, practically from day one, Rosslyn would eclipse literally everything else in our lives. That’s truly not an exaggeration. And, in all candor, it wasn’t particularly wise on our part. If we could do it again, we would try harder to define and observe boundaries. We would create actual limits. We would take breaks. Or at least, we tell each other that that’s what we would do differently. We would try to create boundaries. We would try to take breaks.

    But you can’t un-live life. And regrets are uncomely.

    Re-examining life, however, is not only possible. In this case it’s prerequisite to the task at hand. The tasks at hand…

    Rosslyn Dock House, by Melissa Davis
    Rosslyn Dock House, by Melissa Davis

    Leaping

    Today Susan and I are longer-term Rosslyn residents — by a factor of four! — than even our most unbridled expectations at the outset. And yet we struggle to untether ourselves from our adventure fairytale with this home, property, and community. In the months ahead I’ll explore this curious connection with place, with an old house that became our home, with a community that beguiled us from the outset and wove us into its enchanting tapestry, and also with the fact that we originally envisioned this chapter of our lives as a temporary transition, a wholesome regrouping, and how challenging it has been to separate ourselves from Rosslyn, and from this community. The complex liminal space we envisioned Rosslyn becoming way back in 2006 was not ready to graduate us after three of four years as we’d originally anticipated. And today Rosslyn’s remarkable liminality is once again catalyzing profound and important growth for us. Transformation is omnipresent, not only at Rosslyn, but everywhere. We’re living through many levels of concurrent transition. And Rosslyn, as she has since 2006, is guiding us, nurturing us, and preparing us for what awaits us down the road.

    Today’s post, though rambling and unwieldy, comes at a time when we are brainstorming and daydreaming and contemplating what it would look like to untether and disembark on a new adventure. The vision is still forming, the seed still germinating. But you’re invited to join us as we contemplate and eventually cast off.

    Bur first, before introducing the wonders we’re currently navigating, let’s hopscotch through a few earlier posts that refresh our memory about how this marvelous tale began.

    Rooted in a personal shift from wanderlust to houselust, I spent 2003 through 2005 recognizing that I was thinking differently about home and community.

    I’d made it into my early thirties without owning a home due to my intentionally peripatetic lifestyle, and despite an aesthete’s appetite for buildings and furnishing and gardens, I hadn’t the least interest in settling down. No biological clock ticking. No nesting instinct. No yen for taxes and maintenance and burst pipes and snow shoveling. No desire whatsoever for the trappings of a settled, domestic life. I understood why it appealed to others, but for me the commitments and encumbrances far outweighed the pride and financial wisdom of home ownership.

    Until recently.

    Something had changed, and I couldn’t quite figure out how or why. (Source: Paris Renovation Bug)

    Perhaps for nostalgic reasons I began looking at forgotten farms, bygone barns, meandering stone walls hemming in overgrown fields…

    The perfect place, I explained to Bruce, the friend and realtor who shuttled me from property to property, would be a small, simple farmhouse in the middle of fields with a sturdy barn and some acreage, maybe a stream or a pond or access to a river. Barns, in particular, pulled me. Secluded places with good light and views, forgotten places with stories still vaguely audible if you slowed down long enough to hear the voices. No loud traffic. An old overgrown orchard, perhaps. Asparagus and rhubarb gone feral near the barn. Stone walls, lots of stone walls and maybe an old stone foundation from a building long ago abandoned, the cellar hole full to bursting with day lilies. A couple of old chimneys in the farmhouse with fireplaces. A simple but spacious kitchen. A bedroom with plenty of windows. A room to read and write and collage the walls with notes, lists, photos, drawings and scraps. Someplace I could tinker at myself, gradually restoring the walls and plaster and roof. Timeworn wide plank floorboards of varying widths that I would sand by hand to avoid erasing the footpaths and dings and cupping from a burst pipe years before. (Source: Serene, Patinaed Fantasy)

    As Susan became more and more interested in my North Country real estate search, we both began to imagine what it would look like to spend more time in a place that pulled us like poetry, viscerally if sometimes inexplicably.

    “I’d be living a green lifestyle in the Adirondacks too. I love it here. I’d be thrilled to live here for a few years.” Peripatetic by nature, I enjoyed relocating every three to four years. Having grown up in the Adirondacks, mostly in the Champlain Valley, I had long yearned to reconnect, not just for vacation or a weekend. (Source: Postprandial Soak)

    Projecting our lifestyle fantasies onto the tapestry of the Adirondacks’ Champlain Valley became a constant pastime.

    We could waterski and windsurf for half the year instead of just two or three months, starting in May with drysuits and finishing in the end of October. We could sail the Hobie Cat more instead of letting it collect spider webs on the Rock Harbor beach. I could fly fish the Boquet and Ausable Rivers in the afternoon while Tasha snoozed on the bank. We could join Essex Farm, the local CSA, supporting a local startup while eating healthy, locally grown and raised food. I could grow a vegetable garden, an herb garden, an orchard. Susan could work for an architecture firm in Burlington and volunteer at the animal shelter. We could buy season passes to Whiteface and downhill ski several days a week. We could cross country ski and snowshoe and bike and rollerblade and kayak and canoe and hike, and maybe I would start rock climbing again… [With] our collective brainstorm leap frogging forward, it all started to make a strange sort of sense, to seem almost logical. (Source: Almost Logical)

    Susan and I loved to tell stories, and increasingly we were beginning to insert ourselves into the intoxicating plot of a co-authored fairytale nestled into the Adirondack foothills, rebooting our lives and our work in a more intentional, healthier, happier way. Creating a new chapter together.

    “Are you serious? Would you really want to live at Rosslyn?” Susan persisted.

    I was unclear whether she was horrified or excited. I had made the suggestion spontaneously, without forethought, and now I felt embarrassed. I knew the idea was absurd. We both knew it made no sense at all. And yet we had returned to see the house again that morning. A second visit to a house we had already decided not to buy. Why? It exerted an inexplicable pull for both of us. It had awakened our imaginations, our fantasies, our hopes.

    “No. And yes,” I said, hedging. “No, I’m not really serious. I just suggested it off the cuff. It’s probably the stupidest idea ever, or at least the least serious idea ever. But yes, there is a side of me that would love to live at Rosslyn. I’ve felt it each time we’ve visited the house. I’m not sure I can explain it…”

    “You don’t need to,” Susan said. She was beaming. “I agree.” She rose out of the bath and wrapped a towel around her broad shoulders. “What a dream it would be, to live in that grand old home!” (Source: We could live at the Rosslyn)

    Little by little we were talking ourselves, talking each other into a transformation that would encompass virtually every aspect of our lives. It didn’t happen overnight, but the possibilities we were conjuring had begun to eclipse our desire to stay in Manhattan, my desire to return to Europe, and our realistic sense that anything else in the world could possibly make as much sense as relocating to the western shores of Lake Champlain to build a home together.

  • Connection with Place

    Connection with Place

    Connection with Place (Source: Geo Davis)
    Connection with Place (Source: Geo Davis)

    I was recently accused, tenderly but definitively, of being obsessed with locale, and more precisely, with my connection to place. As a lifelong wanderer, this struck me as slightly ironic. And accurate.

    By now my fixation on hyperlocality and placeness (aka the poetics of place) have become inextricably woven into the entirety of Rosslyn Redux, the robust and resilient fiber that holds it all together, or — as popularized in the parlance of contemporary talking heads — the “connective tissue” of this protracted inquiry into our decision to purchase and rehabilitate Rosslyn as a foundational platform for our small family’s life (and lifestyle) reboot.

    From 1999 to 2003 I was living and working in Europe. Mostly Paris, France. But Rome, Italy had become a second base by the end of that exciting chapter, a period that started with teaching and coaching at the American School of Paris and evolved into co-founding and launching Maison Margaux, an exclusive vacation rental startup, and Margaux Europe Group, a boutique travel platform. My business partner and I had based these businesses in New York City, and this third base of my globetrotting existence became even more important in the summer of 2001 when Susan and I discovered one another and tumbled head over heals into an intoxicating transatlantic romance.

    In those years I prided myself with what I had dubbed immersion travel rather than tourist travel. The Margaux Project was founded on this distinction. Deep travel. Authentic travel. Meaningful travel. Transformative travel. Human-centric vs. travel brochure scrapbook travel… My love affairs with Paris and Rome (indeed even with New York City) were complex and enriching and multifaceted. We wanted to provide a means for discerning clients to experience Paris, Rome, (and eventually Barcelona, intended at the time to become our third property) with the nuanced richness; genuine, unadulterated texture; and personal intimacy that we had both come to appreciate.

    But I was a committed and unabashed global nomad. By choice. By conviction. The dissonance didn’t really phase me at the time!

    Wanderlust vs. Connection to Place

    This fundamental duality — a peripatetic wanderer drawn to unique locales and connection to place — is at the heart of the thread I call Wanderlust to Houselust. I’ve learned through our Rosslyn years that I am both migratory and rooted. For many years I understood myself as a perennial vagabond, and I celebrated the carefreedom and independence that my work/life amalgam allowed.

    But building a loving family and a profoundly fulfilling lifestyle around placeness (Rosslyn, Essex, Lake Champlain, the Adirondacks, the North Country,..) has taught me how important community and connection to place are to me. It’s also helped me understand that I’m not either/or… not nomad OR potted plant.

    Life, my life, is more complex than I’d understood despite developing Maison Margaux and Margaux Europe Group around the philosophy of immersion travel — journeying more authentically and meaningfully, interacting rather than travel-skimming. Certainly my need for connection to place was there, but I didn’t recognize what it was. Now I do. And I understand that the meaningful authenticity, the human-to-human interaction, the belonging that had drawn me to a specific type of travel was precisely what fueled my early enthusiasm for living in Essex. It was connection to place that had always enticed me. I just didn’t know it.

     

  • Wavy Window Glass

    Wavy Window Glass

    Wavy Window Glass (Source: Geo Davis)
    Wavy Window Glass (Source: Geo Davis)

    I find something whimsical and intriguing about looking through o-o-old windows. Antique panes of glass. Wavy window glass that subtly distorts and dream-ifies the view.

    Another more Apollonian observer might consider this riffled reality discomfiting, unsettling. But wonder wells within me when grandfatherly glass slumps and swirls. It’s like a watercolor. An impressionist painting. A mirage. It invites the viewer’s curiosity and creativity to complete the image. To co-create the illusion.

    Wavy window glass,
    swirling, curling, rippling glass,
    my undulant muse.
    — Geo Davis

    I shared this sentiment more succinctly here:

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CS4NqFvrpG9/

    The image appeared more playful in small format on my phone. More watery. Less geometric, the grid of the screen secondary to the semicircular whirl of once molten glass. But, akin to the impetus for this post, the discrepancy between smartphone and desktop images can be surprising and unpredictable. So rather than retracting the coupling of my “Wavy Window Glass Haiku” with a pic poorly illustrative of the idea I’d wished to convey, I’ll tease it bit further here. I’ll try to dilate the notion enough to demonstrate the relevance to Rosslyn Redux.

    Wavy Window Glass Muse

    From my earliest encounters with this property, Rosslyn emerged as something more than the name of a few old buildings on an historic waterfront. Rosslyn loomed larger than bricks and mortar and slate and sagging floors. Rosslyn was a real and overarching character — an anthropomorphic entity akin to a living, breathing human being — that both Susan and I both recognized and admired.

    We’ve often joked that Rosslyn seduced us.

    Yes, projection.

    But you know what? She did. Rosslyn seduced us.

    From the get-go we both yielded to this benevolent force. We were smitten, willingly and unreservedly. And our bearings blurred. The reason(s) we purchased the property, uprooted ourselves from Manhattan, transplanted our small family of three (Susan, Tasha, and your faithful scribe) to Essex began to evolve. Our objectives wavered — no, more like shimmered the way a mirage does, at once enticing and confusing — and our vision meandered from the clarity we’d identified at the outset. Rosslyn swept us into a kaleidoscopic adventure as burgeoning and unpredictable as it was engrossing.

    A decade and a half after we purchased Rosslyn, we’re still in her thrall despite an original timely of 2-4 years. That’s right, at the outset we saw this chapter of our lives as a tidy interval. A recuperative ellipse. Ha!

    In virtually all respects our love affair with Rosslyn has enriched our marriage and lives among family and friends. She has provided generously and faithfully for us. And we consider her a being, a member of our small family (Susan, Carley, Rosslyn, and yours truly).

    Where exactly am I going with this?

    While I won’t put words in Susan’s mouth (nor Carley’s, for that matter) I’m 100% certain that Rosslyn became my muse. Yes, I’m proposing manse as muse. And a beguiling and mysterious muse, I might add.

    Rosslyn’s wavy window glass serves as suitable symbol for muse who wove her way into our lives.

    I’ve likened peering through old glass to looking at a watercolor. The image adorning the top of this post (and an idea I’ll revisit fleetingly in tomorrow’s blog post, “Backcountry Barns”) play with watercoloring’s romantic expressionism. In my opinion, watercolor is compelling in large part due to its evocative, emotional appeal. Less duty-bound to verisimilitude, I find that a well executed watercolor is an invitation to wonder, an invitation to collaborate with the artist, and to enter into a protean partnership with creator and creation. Watercolor is less object than lens, less product than process.

    Much like her wavy window glass, Rosslyn as muse has welcomed whimsy into our journey and relationship with her. As such she’s been an immensely inspiring and encouraging mentor. She’s encouraged us to see home and family and community differently. She’s helped us reimagine our relationships with all three.

    I’ve distilled too little and wandered too much in this post, so I’ll curtail my mental roving. In closing I’d like to share a couple of useful snippets.

    Hand-Blown Glass

    If you’re unfamiliar with wavy glass, the simplest explanation for it’s unusual character is that it was hand-blown.

    For years, the only glass available was hand-blown glass… A local glass worker would blow the glass on a rod and spin it into discs which when cooled could be cut into small pieces. (Source: The Craftsman Blog)

    Pre-industrial, hand made glass retained interesting artifacts unique to its fabrication process. Here’s a more detailed explanation.

    Wavy glass is the “cool-looking” glass commonly found in older window panes, doors, and furniture built prior to the early 1900s.

    Generally, the further back in history you go, the wavier the glass is. As craftsmen improved their methods over time, the wave and distortion became less apparent.

    Early manufacture of glass involved single sheets of glass manufactured by a craftsman by blowing through a tube, resulting in tiny bubbles called seeds.

    As a result, glass produced in the 1700s tends to have more distortion than glass produced in the 1800s. In the early 1900s, increasing industrial advances led to machine-produced glass. This glass, while less wavy, still had imperfections and was widely used in the United States cities in the early 1900s. (Source: Pioneer Glass)

    You’ll never look at an old pane of wavy window glass the same way again!

  • Walking Stick Haiku I

    Walking Stick on Fence Post (Source: RP Murphy)
    Walking Stick on Fence Post (Source: RP Murphy)

    A couple of weeks ago I shared another walking stick photograph on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter with this accompanying haiku.

    A walking stick and
    miniature companion
    gossip in the shade.

    My walking stick haiku makes more sense if you actually look closely at the photograph.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CDogBYJpIs8/

    Can you discern the walking stick’s miniature companion? Is it a spider. Definitely not a yellow garden spider, but I’m not certain if it’s another arachnid or another spidery insect.

    The walking sticks were photographed while perching on lawn furniture and a fence posts. Different but not distant locations. There’s another notable difference. Or two. Can you spot it/them?

    Walking Stick Trivia

    Today’s snapshot (the one at the top of this post) appears to be the same variety of walking stick (maybe even the very same bug), but s/he appears to have lost a rear leg. And a green arm or half of a pair of Pinocchio proboscises?

    Unfortunate. Losing limbs unlikely offers a survival advantage. And yet this walking stick remains agile despite the impairment.

    I realize I’ve never shared a “Friend or Foe” post about walking sticks, so I’m adding it to the already endless punch list of future posts. It’ll be the perfect excuse to learn a little more about this bizarrely beautiful bug.

    Phasmids, Phasmatodea, Phasmatoptera…

    It turns our that walking sticks (aka “ghost insects”?!?!) are somewhat phantasmagorical, er, rather Phasmatodea. You with me?

    The Phasmatodea (also known as Phasmida, Phasmatoptera or Spectra) are an order of insects whose members are variously known as stick insects, stick-bugs, walking sticks, or bug sticks. They are generally referred to as phasmatodeans, phasmids, or ghost insects. (Source: Wikipedia)

    Walking sticks perplexing and intriguing. And, in a slightly bamboo way, they are beautiful. Well, at least the ones I’m sharing in this post. I admit that I know little about these quirky insects, so it’s a time to pursue curiosity down the proverbial rabbit hole (or bug hole?!?!) It’s time to learn more about the Phasmatodea…

    You can file this next tidbit in your quirky-to-the-point-of-being-cool folder. (You have one of those, right? Right!) If you think that walking sticks — as well as other “stick and leaf insects” in the phasmid species such as Chitoniscus sarrameaensis — are worth more than just a fleeting glance, I suggest you check out Phasmatodea.com.

    Phasmatodea.com is the world’s leading website about phasmids. (Source: Phasmatodea.com)
    The world’s leading website about phasmids. (Source: Phasmatodea.com)

    Phasmatodea.com… started as a project funded by the phasmid experts, Oskar Conle and Frank Hennemann, with the clear aim to provide an extensive source of information, photos and possibility for the identification of species of this fascinating insect order, not only for scientists but also for breeders and anyone interested in these insects. Now we’re the world’s leading website about phasmids, having the largest photographic gallery and the most comprehensive content about this insect order. (Source: www.phasmatodea.com)

    Welcome to the wacky, wonder-filled world of walking sticks. Off to learn more, maybe even enough to some day share a a “Friend or Foe: Walking Sticks” post. Stay tuned. Or, better yet, teach me what I need to know before I get gobbled up by a walking bamboo stick. Thanks.

  • Hazy Days Haiku

    Hazy Days Haiku

    I’d planned on getting the drone up in the air for some aerial photography of the waterfront and deck areas (where we’re planning some maintenance projects). As luck would have it the morning was misty. No, more like pea soup. So I waited. And waited. It burned off a little, but finally I realized it wasn’t going to clear up. I decided to find out what I could photograph despite the less-than-optimal conditions.

    The results were not as useful as I’d hoped, but also considerably more interesting than anticipated. More dreamy and evocative. More dramatic. More romantic. In short, a win!

    Sometimes it’s just a matter or pivoting priorities, right?

    Hazy Days Haiku

    Lazy, hazy days,
    midsummer lakeside mornings,
    deciduous daze.

    At moments like this that I surrender to poetics. To place. To the poetics of place.

    Sometimes poetry and artful images speak more clearly, even more truthfully, than all the analytic blather we’re want to rely upon. Sometimes it’s worth stepping aside and allowing the simplest of ideas and images to tell the story. 

    Here’s one of the photographs that speaks volumes to me. Hope it says a little something to you as well!

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CSWsTAdrIuU/

    I find that aerial photography (and drone imaging in general) often deliver surprising results. The perspective is often surprising. As is the beauty. The almost tannic inkyness of the foreground waters (where Rosslyn’s boathouse extends east into Blood’s Bay). The shoreline connection to Lake Champlain‘s Adirondack Coast is as compelling as the relationship to the Adirondack Mountains (and Boquet Mountain in particular) is this hazy midsummer “eye in the sky” snapshot.

  • Rainbow Resonance

    Rainbow Resonance

    Rainbow Resonance, August 18, 2020 (Photo: Geo Davis)
    Rainbow Resonance, August 18, 2020 (Photo: Geo Davis)

    Perhaps a purist will scoff, a musicologist for example, when I hitch a rainbow (a double rainbow) to resonance. But I’ll claim poetic license long enough to sneak past the physics police or whoever else patrols these matters. Rainbow resonance isn’t just a pleasantly alliterative title for this post. It’s an observation. Rainbows — witnessed in person, via image, or in words — resonate. They reverberate. Visual reverberation, visual resonance. I’ll defer to the more scientifically inclined to explain why this phenomenon is true. I’ll simply assert it. Rainbow resonance is real. Spy a rainbow, and you instantly want to convey it through some form of communication.

    “Hey, look. A rainbow!”

    Or you snap a photo, text it to your beloved.

    Maybe you pen a poem or paint a watercolor or compose a song…

    On August 18, 2020 I witnessed and romanced this rainbow from Rosslyn’s lawn and then from our waterfront. I snapped a photo and typed a quick haiku. And then I shared them. Rainbow resonance. It’s real.

    Rainbow Resonance: Haiku

    Here’s the arresting impossibility of a double rainbow distilled into as few words as possible, lest the words occlude the vibrant arcs.

    Iris arcing her
opulent salutation
‘tween earth and ether.

    Perhaps this is a nod to Pablo Neruda.

    Dónde termina el arco iris,
en tu alma o en el horizonte?

Where does the rainbow end,
in your soul or on the horizon?

— Pablo Neruda, Libro de las Preguntas (Book of Questions)

    Or perhaps this is just a haiku nodding at a double rainbow…

    Rosslyn Rainbow Resonance, August 18, 2020 (Photo: Geo Davis)
    Rosslyn Rainbow Resonance, August 18, 2020 (Photo: Geo Davis)

    Rainbow Reverb: Social Media

    Sometimes a thought, image, or video posted onto social media drifts briefly and then vanishes. Short lived. A non event. A message whispered into the chasm, swallowed by the wind and water and a mesmerizing murmuration.

    Once in a while a message is timely or touching, a lucky capture, or for some other mysterious reason finds its target. Again and again. Reverberating. Resonant. These moments can be affirming and beautiful.

    When I shared the rainbow over Lake Champlain photograph at the top of this post (and below) on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter on August 18, 2020 I was pleasantly surprised with the feedback. I include all three posts as an effort to interweave some of the most compelling comments. Enjoy.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CEDew4QJG4i/

    https://www.twitter.com/RosslynRedux/status/1295915240421502977

    Click on this Facebook link to view the original FB post (or add the following URL into your browser.)

    https://www.facebook.com/rosslynredux/photos/a.193160807397700/3188013817912369/

    Thanks!

  • Peach Haikus

    Peach Haikus

    Peach Haikus (Image: Geo Davis)
    Peach Haikus (Image: Geo Davis)

    Today’s a day for peach haikus. With blustery storm incoming, our team concerned about balancing inclement weather reports with an ambitious 4-day scope of work, and the sort of bone-deep chill that shivers the bones and shakes the confidence, I propose that we take a micro-vacation. How’s that? Let’s flip the calendar back to sunny August when Rosslyn’s peach trees offered up sun warmed fruit bursting with nectar. A pair of summer-soaked watercolors and a pair of poems just might take the edge off and remind us that similar joys lay ahead. I hope that you enjoy these peach haikus.

    Peach Haikus

    As I’ve mentioned previously, recent years have drawn me toward the humility and mystery of haiku. Through brevity and minimalism blossoms a microscopic world. An invitation to disconnect from the hurly-burly for a while in order to immerse ourselves in a moment, a fragment. And often that miniature moment actually contains something immense, universal. A bit like gazing into a small drop of water that appears to amplify the world around it like a gnome-scale snow globe. Minus the snow. We’re trying to conjure summer vibes after all.

    ·•·

    Peaches This Year

    Few peaches this year
    but plump, nectar swollen with
    best flavor ever.
    — Geo Davis

    ·•·

    First Peaches

    Summer’s first peaches,
    sunshine soaked and siren sweet,
    seduce all senses.
    — Geo Davis

    Peach Haikus (Image: Geo Davis)
    Peach Haikus (Image: Geo Davis)

    Peach Haikus in Mid-December

    There’s something decadent about peaches in wintery months. Once upon a time it would have been an impossibility, of course, but in this brave new world it’s possible to purchase peaches year-round, harvested faraway in warmer climes. And yet, no matter how reputable the source, there’s simply no comparing a snow season peach to the fresh-off-the-tree variety we enjoy in mid to late summer. The colors are almost impossibly saturated, and the sweet treacle that drips from lips is an indulgence on par only with fantasies. Even the aroma of a sun soaked peach pulled from the branch is an extravagance. Store bought winter beaches often have no smell at all, or only the subtlest of ghost-smells, like a facsimile transmitted too many times, diluted with each new iteration.

    And yet, perhaps, just maybe these images and these peach haikus will conjure for you a recollection so tantalizing that your optimism will rebound, incoming winter will settle into a less ominous perspective, and your enthusiasm for next summer’s fruit will revitalize your spirits. Hope so!

  • Hammock Huddle Haiku

    Hammock Huddle Haiku

    Hammock Huddle (Source: Geo Davis)
    Hammock Huddle (Source: Geo Davis)

    Hankering for a hammock huddle this morning, so I’ll I revisit the photograph I shared on June 6 depicting a herd of hammocks near the orchard. Yes, the color is a little over juiced. And the shadows are dark almost to the point of feeling ominous. Or cozy? But this moment beckons this morning given yesterday’s storm damage. (I’ve included another image below capturing just how close one of the fallen trees came to both the icehouse and the hammock huddle.

    Hammock Huddle Haiku

    Together apart,
    plein air cocoons canopied
    beneath maple trees.
    — Geo Davis

    Pandemic Precursor

    While quarantining during the early months of the pandemic Susan and I spent time exploring and experimenting with aspects of our property that we’d never considered before. Or not recently, at least.

    Sixteen years have lulled us into habits, ways of living and looking at Rosslyn that have possibly become more confining than we’d realized prior to weeks-on-end of quarantine.

    We spent many afternoons and early evenings on the lawn of the abandoned clay tennis court (located west, northwest of the icehouse). It started because the early spring sunsets were best visible from here, but it continued because we discovered a fresh and inviting space and perspective that we’d previously overlooked. And this new vantage, this new ritual catalyzed a shift in our thinking. Wondering, really. We’d inadvertently stumbled upon a liminal space. And the longer we spent hammocking together near the glowing Solo stove fire pit gifted to us by our older nephew, bundling up as the evening grew chill, witnessing another pandemic sunset, the more our conversations and questions raced into exciting new places. Our wondering wandered further and further into liminality.

    Transitions. Flux. Liminality. Interstices. Inflection. Evolving… We are awash in transitions! (Source: Transitions)

    Three years later we’re navigating a tempest of transformation. But I’m tickling a tangent, so best to stick with our hammock huddle for now.

    Ensemble Hammocking

    Our earliest ensemble hammocking in this location, back in March or April 2020, was nestled up together in this wooden arc stand.

    Pandemic Hammocking 2020 (Source: Geo Davis)
    Pandemic Hammocking 2020 (Source: Geo Davis)

    Needless to say, no side-by-side reveal since we were quarantined, and we weren’t super swift with selfies…

    We’ve long loved hammocks, stringing them up throughout our property, so it occured to me that it would be fun to create a group of hammocks hanging together in the hopes that soon we’d be able to be joined by friends once again. Recumbent social distancing!

    The hammock huddle shown at the top of this post was born. The same is shown here, minus the giant maple tree that used to tower nearby.

    Hammock Huddle (Source: Geo Davis)
    Hammock Huddle (Source: Geo Davis)

    As it turns out, the hammock roundup has been a hit. For the third season in a row we’ve enjoyed group hammocking among the still adolescent stand of maple trees growing between the tennis court and the orchard.

    Yesterday‘s storm damage was distributed throughout our property, and the immense maple that succumbed in the photo stood right next to the hammock huddle. Guided through the forceful blow by some benevolent force, the towering tree exploded onto the ground without damaging the hammocks, the maple trees in which they are suspended, or for that matter any of the adjoining trees save a few branches here and there. It’s remarkable really. Even the gate through which we drive the tractor was unscathed. And, as I pointed out yesterday, if the wind been blowing in the opposite direction, the maple would likely have destroyed the icehouse that we are just beginning to rehabilitate. Instead, we have a new aperture of visible sky this morning and a year’s worth of firewood.

  • Mulberry Meditation

    Mulberry Meditation

    Mulberry Meditation (Source: Geo Davis)
    Mulberry Meditation (Source: Geo Davis)

    There is much to admire
                in a mulberry tree.
    The handsome habit and height.
                The luxurious leaves.
                The shady canopy.
    The concentrated blackberry-esque
                burst of inky sweetness.

    While you may have a fuzzy notion about mulberry wine, there’s a fairly good chance you haven’t actually spied — up close and personal — a mulberry tree or mulberries. So I find when I walk family and friends through Rosslyn’s orchard this time of year, stopping to point out the ripening fruit. If ripe enough to eat, and lately the mulberries have been perfect, almost everyone who tastes the fruit loves the taste. And yet these delicious tree-grown raspberry impersonators are unfamiliar. I wonder why…

    I’d like to revisit this perplexing situation in in the future. But now a look at our three trees and a mindful mulberry meditation of sorts. First let’s stand a while beneath one of the mulberry trees, and lifting our gaze up into the shady foliage, our eyes will begin to spy the mulberries hanging like miniature clusters of grapes.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CSt4JpDLZ4L/

    Although I shared this Instagram post yesterday, most of those photos actually date back a couple of weeks. Now the third and last of our mulberry trees is ripening. And it’s raining. So I harken back to sunnier days.

    The first two Hardy Mulberry (Morus nigra) trees ripened roughly concurrently. Their fruit is slightly smaller than the Illinois Everbearing Mulberry (Morus rubra) which we (and the birds!) are harvesting now. Despite some potential color confusion with Morus nigra (aka black mulberry), Morus rubra (aka red mulberry), and Morus alba (aka white mulberry, common mulberry, or silkworm mulberry), both of our varieties are ripe when they appear shiny black. The juice within is actually somewhere between scarlet, violet, and midnight. Lips and fingers quickly stain dramatically and persistently, so don’t expect to sneak a snack without getting caught!

    Mulberry Meditation (Source: Geo Davis)
    Mulberry Meditation (Source: Geo Davis)

    Carley, our year-plus old Labrador retriever manages to stealthily Hoover fallen fruit from the grass, at once an efficient and stain free means of harvesting. I’ve yet to master this technique myself, so my fingertips often belie my gluttony for the rest of the day.

    Mulberry Maturation

    Our mulberry trees are about nine or ten years old at this point, and they’re growing tall enough to actually evoke treeness rather than nursery stock or dwarf stock. As the trees have aged they’ve set heavier and heavier crops of fruit each summer. Given the approximately 15-18′ height of all three trees, the birds are the primary beneficiaries. We harvest what we can reach and leave the rest to our avian neighbors.

    When the fruit first emerge from the mulberry flowers, they are green and covered in small black “threads” left from the blooms. These fall off as the mulberries ripen first to white, then pink, then red, then purple, and finally a deep lavendar-black. At this point they are plump, glossy, and 100% ready to eat!

    It’s time for my mulberry meditation, but first a gallery (in case the Instagram post isn’t working.)

    Mulberry Meditation

    At the outset I mentioned a mindful mulberry meditation, and I hinted at the vague familiarity that I and others might have with wine fermented from the juice of this beneficent tree. That time has come.

    “I put everything I can into the mulberry of my mind and hope that it is going to ferment and make a decent wine. How that process happens, I’m sorry to tell you I can’t describe.”

    John Hurt

    “Huzzah!” I’m grateful indeed to Mr. Hurt for bundling up such creative cleverness. Both bacchanalian and theatrical, Dionysian and persistently mysterious… I’m struck by the many ways this metaphorical explanation approximates the whimsical adventure of redacting Rosslyn. I’ve turned often enough to my own compost and gardening metaphors to obliquely and insufficiently describe my own process. I’m essaying — albeit in unpredictable fits and starts — to distill our wonder-filled fifteen year affair with Rosslyn into the sort of package that might be handed on to others.

    What in the world do I mean?

    Good question. And if the answer were as good, as tidy and clear, I’d have wrapped up and ventured on to a new quest long ago. I haven’t. Not yet.

    However I am feeling closer to clarity, closer to a tidy conclusion in recent years. Even recent months.

    There’s much to unpack here (to borrow a euphemism from contemporary talking heads), and I’m doubling down on my resolve to package Rosslyn and pass her on. The property. The experience. The story.

    It’s premature to say more now, but know that Susan and I have begun to wonder and daydream about a future in which Rosslyn has been fully fledged. It’s complicated. It’s bittersweet. And it’s still premature.

    We’re not quite ready to say goodbye to her yet, far from it actually, so our leave-taking is not imminent. But it’s out there on the horizon, and together we’re brainstorming and beginning the process of letting go, of passing her on. Some day. Concurrently I’m revisiting the images and notes and sketches and letters and poems, allowing them to ferment and hopefully made a decent wine from a decade and a half of life and memories and artifacts.

    Before my words wander too far afield, I will close this wayward reflection with my mulberry backstory.

    A long, long time ago, at least four decades, maybe more, I first tasted mulberries at an auction. It was midsummer, just like now, and my family was attending an outdoor auction on an old farm that might or might not have been abandoned at the time. I don’t recall for certain, but I suspect the property had been vacant for a while.

    I actually don’t remember much about the day except that I came across a grade school classmate who lived in the town nearby. She introduced me to mulberries.

    A towering tree stood at the gabled end of an ancient barn, and the ground beneath was covered with fallen fruit. In short order we’d climbed up into the branches to feast on ripe mulberries. We spent the rest of the afternoon high in the mulberry tree savoring (to the point of achy stomachs) the jammy black mulberry deliciousness. With the auctioneer’s singsong soundtrack and enough mulberries to bloat our bellies and stain our clothes, the hours melted deliciously into the sort of nostalgic motherlode that still brings me contentment in midlife.

    My decision to plant mulberry trees at Rosslyn half a lifetime later was rooted in that sweet syrupy memory.

  • Apple Still Life

    Apple Still Life

    Seven Apples, an apple still life, August 10, 2022 (Source: Geo Davis)
    Seven Apples, an apple still life, August 10, 2022 (Source: Geo Davis)

    Sometime seven apples, five ripe edibles and two depicted in watercolor, are perfection. Rosslyn’s curious combination of real fruit and facsimiles (the latter painted by a dear friend, Amy Guglielmo, nearly two decades ago) are subtly playful. A self reflective still life, if you will. A juxtaposition of food and art.

    I’ll admit that a decent dose of sentimentality pulls me here. A delicate illustration conjured by a close companion of many years. And plump apples tempting. Granite agonized over, tiles attentively paired by my bride and me, installed by Elaine Miller in the August days of Rosslyn’s lengthy rehabilitation,…

    But there’s another poignancy as well, and it’s rooted in the illustrative rendering, liquid pigments now dried onto, into paper. A photograph of a painting of apples. Next to real apples. A verisimilitude vignette. As I endeavor to untangle my Rosslyn narrative from our Rosslyn narrative; to distill my poems and stories and essays and homemade images from the property itself (and her many artifacts); indeed to separate myself, ourselves from the ecosystem that has been our home and our life for so long; there is something in this vignette that resonates deep within me despite the fact that I still can’t quite define it. Perhaps clarity will accrue in the coming months as I reexamine the memories and relics of our sixteen years at Rosslyn. Partly a poetics of place, perhaps. But what else? Why?

  • A Lake Is Born

    A Lake Is Born

    A Lake Is Born (Source: Geo Davis)
    A Lake Is Born (Source: Geo Davis)

    No night, I’m thinking
    (willing, really), lasts
    forever, endless.
    But my confidence
    flutters then falters.
    What if I’m wrong?

    Just then, before dawn,
    day breaks early and
    undreams the darkness,
    banishes black that
    ripens to eggplant,
    fades to indigo.

    A solitary
    sunbeam’s hatchet honed
    cleaves wide somber dome,
    spills veins of amber,
    honey smeared scarlet
    over-ripened, bursts.

    A vast aquarelle
    unleveed shimmers,
    a lake is born and
    mountain range cutouts,
    mirrored but mottled
    on breeze dimpled plain. 

     

  • Icehouse Door

    Icehouse Door

    Icehouse Door (Source: Geo Davis)
    Icehouse Door (Source: Geo Davis)

    I’d like to shift your focus for a moment to the almost-ready-for-groundbreaking rehabilitation of Rosslyn’s historic icehouse situated just north of the carriage barn. Has your focus shifted? Good. Now let’s zoom in a little tighter to the icehouse door. Perhaps imagine yourself walking south on the sidewalk in front of Rosslyn, looking across the front lawn past the stone wall, toward the setting sun. Can you see the west facade of the icehouse? Can you see the door?

    Icehouse Door Haiku

    Sightlines and viewsheds
    in the historic district
    hinge upon a door.
    — Geo Davis

    As I’ve remarked in the past, there are times when a tidy haiku might accomplish more than a verbose dissertation. If in your estimation my mission is accomplished in the seventeen syllables ahead, I invite you to abbreviate your read here.

    If you’re inclined to probe a little deeper, or simply have no clue what I’m getting at, please read on. But, note that a dissertation isn’t in the offing. I’ll take a reasonable run at the idea(s) in the haiku above, but the bottom line is this. The west facade of Rosslyn’s icehouse is within the public viewshed and various sightlines reveal the icehouse door from sidewalk, road, etc. What does that mean, and why is it important?

    Sightlines & Viewsheds

    In architecture, design, and urban planning “sightlines” is a relatively self-explanatory term combining perspective and line-of-sight visibility within built and unbuilt environments. Hhhmmm… I’m pretty certain that armchair definition wouldn’t pass muster with the AIA, so let’s try a different approach. Within a building or any space, really, what you can see and the relationships between what you can see are your sightlines. What is visible? What is partially or completely obscured? How do visible elements relate to one another? Is the relationship between visible elements visually appealing?

    Okay, so what about “viewshed”?

    The good folks at Merriam-Webster define viewshed as “the natural environment that is visible from one or more viewing points”. Sounds a little bit like the way I’ve tried to explain sightlines. Let’s see if I can muddle things even further by dipping into the collective genius of Wikipedia.

    A viewshed is the geographical area that is visible from a location. It includes all surrounding points that are in line-of-sight with that location and excludes points that are beyond the horizon or obstructed by terrain and other features (e.g., buildings, trees). Conversely, it can also refer to area from which an object can be seen. A viewshed is not necessarily “visible” to humans… (Source: Wikipedia, September 18, 2022)

    All cleared up? No? Hhhmmm… Let’s tap a few other resources.

    Viewsheds are visualizations of what is visible from a given point and are often used in urban planning. (Source: ArcGIS CityEngine Resources)

    When I was 5 years old, I used to play hide-and-seek with my friends. Just like any kid, I’d always try to find the best hiding spots. I used to wonder: If I hide in this spot, what is visible from the observer’s point of view all around them (viewsheds)? Or if the observer looks in a straight line, what is obstructed or not (line of sight)? (Source: Line of Sight vs Viewshed: Visibility Analysis – GIS Geography)

    Assessing what’s visible in a straight line from an observer’s specific location involves consideration for obstructions, topographical/elevation change, etc. This, as I understand it, is the sightline. Whereas the viewshed encompasses all visible objects and areas from the observer’s point of view.

    In the case of our about-to-start icehouse rehabilitation, both the public viewshed (from the road, the sidewalk, even the lake which is a public thoroughfare) and the various sightlines (all three I’ve mentioned not only offer multiple perspective and multiple lines-of-sight on a spectrum from roughly north-to-south, but they also represent different elevations ergo unique topographical angles) are relevant, and they loosely informed the considerations of the Town of Essex Planning Board (and general public) when we presented our proposal this past July and August.

    Essex Village Historic District

    Because Rosslyn is a prominent part of the Essex Village Historic District, and because the historic icehouse is deemed important within the historic district’s public viewshed, the icehouse door became a point of discussion during our Planning Board approval process. The discourse and consideration is actually quite interesting. Historic icehouse. Historic icehouse doors. Historic District. Public viewshed. Public sightlines.

    I’m going to treat this as a two-part post, this first installment to introduce the relevant considerations, and a follow-up once design decisions are finalized. For now, I’ll withhold the drawings as originally presented, in order to stimulate your own contemplation…