Kindred Spirits

Suddenly, I seem to be surrounded by amazing American women photographers who have followed their hearts and dreams to England. To be sure, there is something powerfully creative in the British landscape, in the very air here.  It is here that I feel most connected to my creative self. I can’t describe what it is about this place, I have tried (unsuccessfully) on more than one occasion to capture it in writing on the page. But I can see it in their photography. For me, "word-herder" that I am, it is language/syntax/sound (obviously manifested in the works of Shakespeare) that drew and continues to me to this place creatively. I like to walk where he walked. Some days, I look up at the sky, or walk by the River Avon, and wonder to myself: “Perhaps, on a day like today, Shakespeare went for a walk along this path, and was been inspired to write: ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?'”

The very landscape of England breathes poetry. I always have that sensation when I am traveling by train through Warwickshire, the trees are poetry on the landscape.  My new-found friend (though I feel like I’ve known her forever!) Chele Willow shares this sensibility, and has an incredible eye for visual poetry. Through her lens, I see what I fail to express through words  on the page. Here’s one of my favo(u)rite photographs of hers:

 The D.E.B. and are planning a short “holiday” in November to visit “the rellies” (relatives) up North in Yorkshire. I am soooo thrilled to have a chance to finally make it up to “Brontë Country” in the Lake District. And, I really love the D.E.B.’s rellies, so the Brontës are a bonus. Looking forward to experiencing the landscape that inspired Emily, Charlotte and Anne; and of course having a tour of Castle Howard – which I am claiming as my ancestral home!

Elizabeth Harper is another American photographer transplanted to the UK, in Cornwall. To me, Harper seems to possess a warm and sensitive eye that capture’s the very heartbeat of the moment she is shooting. This one of hers struck me to my core. 

Guess I need to acknowledge that day-by-day I am growing increasingly more and more “broody”.  And, as I am often  reminded by one or two of my friends (?) here, the clock is ticking, and I will soon be running out of time. (Comforting.) I look at this picture, and wondered what I’m doing with my life...

The D.E.B. wants to be a Dad, and I really want to make him a dad. He would be a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful father -- I don’t think I have ever met a man more pre-disposed to fatherhood than the D.E.B. As for me, I think I would make a good, if somewhat zany, mother.

As Shakespeare wrote: “the readiness is all.” Are we ready? Am I ready? Will I ever be “ready”? Like Hamlet (big leap here, but go with me), I choose to think and over think, to hesitate, debate with myself, consider all the options &etc., where a more brash and ‘Fortinbras-like’ person would just act and do. And think later. Maybe, I should try harder to channel my inner “Angelina Jolie.” 

Post script –

The tempter washing line has had the ultimate last laugh. Bright, gorgeous, sunny, WARM, late October day.  Spent all morning laundering every item of washable clothing we owe. Got everything on the line before the peak of noon. Feeling triumphant, only to sit here now, some two and half hours later to watch as buckets of hailstones and rain descend upon the nearly dried laundry. Curses! Fooled and foiled again!