My brain is so steeped in the strong brew of literature that fragments of lines and shreds of plots settle at the bottom of the teapot that is my head.  Today, when the usual late-August swarm of fruitflies arose from the peach set down briefly on the counter, Keats jumped out, becoming “Autumn, season of mists and mellow fruit-fly-ness.”  I think it’s an improvement, actually.

Far from its being a time of calm satisfaction with a harvested crop, fall is actually a source of trepidation for most people.  I think it is the sense of returning to work and all of the surprises that come with new people and new challenges.  It normally proves to be happily manageable, but the pace certainly pick up and you barely come up for air until the next summer.

So my heart goes out to all those who have come to know the triggers of impending autumn:

- of course, fruit flies
- the odd red leaf on a tree
- wild grapes ripening
- the thrum of cicadas
- school buses on trial runs
and the two worst  - ads for school supplies and conversations that begin with “Are you looking forward to getting back to it?”

Frankly, I think it should be illegal to stock, let alone advertise, Hilroy products until September.   And it goes without saying that the question rarely sparks joy, as they say.  Unless it is an honest question, coming from another in the same boat, a "morituri te salutamus," it is an impertinence and should be ignored with as much dignity as one can muster.

So, for those of you who, in early August, started counting down the days left, I send you both sympathy and empathy.  You are allowed to kvetch.  Everybody does a certain amount of worrying about change.  You will be fine.  And this too shall pass.  Time really does fly.  Think of those tiny black flies whose lifespan is as minute as they are.  Now they have a GOOD reason to mutter "carpe diem" as they hover over my ripening fruit.  Because I am now about to murder them.

Maria Popova observes that “most of all, we read to become selves. The wondrous gift of reading is that books can become both the life-raft to keep us from drowning and the very water that sculpts the riverbed of our lives, bending it this direction or that, traversing great distances and tessellated territories of being, chiseling through even the hardest rock.”  Brain pickings, 08/19

While I might not have been in danger of drowning this week, the new novel by Julie Orringer chiseled its way into me.  The Flight Portfolio is nominally based on the true story of the American, Varian Fry, who distinguished himself during WWII by setting up an American rescue mission in Bordeaux to smuggle to safety the great Jewish minds of Europe:  “Chagall, painting in his house at Gordes, was an irreplaceable treasure. (...)They had to matter more than others, those men and women; they had to be brighter manifestations of light."  The plot hurtles forward, as Fry races the clock.

He does succeed in saving thousands of Jews from certain death.  In fact, Fry was, like Oskar  Schindler, posthumously named  “Righteous among Gentiles.”  Thanks to him,  not only artists like Chagall but philosophers like Hannah Arendt and writers like Max Ernst, survived to further enrich Western culture.

It should be said that part of this novel invented --  in particular, a memorable character who is the vehicle for a moving love story.  (The author’s Afterword advances an argument to justify such a character.)  This character's presence only deepens the theme of consciously choosing the precipice of action over comfortable complacency:
If we could pin down the moments when our lives bifurcate into before and after—if we could pause the progression of milliseconds, catch ourselves at the point before we slip over the precipice—if we could choose to remain suspended in time-amber, our lives intact, our hearts unbroken, our foreheads unlined, our nights full of undisturbed sleep—would we slip, or would we choose the amber?  

​This novel is about the precipice.

The American Rescue Mission that Fry founded is profoundly inspiring, but what really elevates this novel is the richness of its prose.     Objects take on deeper meanings:  A wind at sea describes a tense moment in a sailboat:  “The air had become taut between them, snapped into a sharp transmitter of movement and respiration.”   Later, warily  in public, Fry notices someone holding “a wicker cage on her lap, inside of which lay the shadowy form of a doomed rabbit.”  He descends a staircase “that spilled from the station like a cubist waterfall.”  I particularly loved the description of Chagall’s atelier as containing work “in its pupal state, damp and mutable, smelling of turpentine, raw wood, wet clay.”  Yup.  
 
Throughout, the sparks of human intelligence drive the novel.  When a great writer commits suicide out of despair, Fry mourns his death in both mechanistic and spiritual terms:
the drug had gone to work, shutting down the intricate machinery of the body, breaking its fine linkages, silencing its humming wires, dimming the electric light of the brain until it went dark. That beautiful brain ceasing to send its beacon out into the night.

Fry and Orringer both believe that "Artists save lives. So do outspoken champions of democracy. And journalists."  I heartily recommend The Flight Portfolio and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.  I read a library version but plan to buy the novel.  Let me know if you would like to borrow it.  z

This morning I was in the bathroom minding my own business when I heard the dreaded tap-tap-tap at the window.  Anyone with real wood soffits and window frames knows that sound.  Somebody - probably a woodpecker who is tired of eating the food I gave him - is mining our house for breakfast.  Dang.

I sprang into action and pulled out the best weapon in my arsenal:  the feline hiss.   I climbed onto the antique cast-iron tub (honestly - it’s almost a century old), put my face as close to the sound as possible, and let fly.  If I do say so, my cat hiss is spectacular. The tapping stopped dead.  When it started up again about a minute later, I threat-nailed it again, and silence finally reigned.  Victory!

So it’s got me thinking about second languages.

Like Jane Goodall I was a huge Dr. Doolittle fan and while I can read French, my preferred second languages are non-human. I do a passable grouse, for example, but I’m most fluent in macaw.  Having lived with one for twenty years, I can summon up a happy drowsy going-to-sleep macaw when necessary.  Handy in a pet shop when you are in the mood to scratch an unfamiliar turquoise head and kiss a delicate powdery-white cheek.  I can also mimic a macaw's version of English.  If you are interested, it’s much further back in the throat and is a low half-growl, although it sweetened up noticeably whenever Bijou  saw a yellow vehicle - school bus or Kapoda - and tried to get its attention for the purpose of matrimony.  It was at its worst on a cartrip to the West Coast.  Her hanging perch was above my newspapered lap and she said “Hi!” to every car we passed, no matter the colour.  Thank heavens it was off-season.

And, of course, I call the chickadees down when the feeders have been refilled, and it’s kind of fun in the spring to tease the male cardinals proclaiming their ownership of a breeding site.  I can fool them for a few moments until they realize that their whistles are far lustier and that the interloper is a weenie and no threat.  Ditto for my great-horned owl hoots. I can get along in morning dove but would hate to try to order lunch with it.

I’ve been working in the back garden (AKA New Forest) trying to pull the last enchanters nightshades before Theodore gets to them and comes back is studded with burs and looking like a punk rocker.  I’ve lots of company.  The robins are busy stripping the pagoda trees of their juicy black berries so they can go and perch over the Adirondack chairs with predictable results.  The cicadas are getting noisy again so the temperature must be rising.  In fact, the insect string sections perform round the clock, the cicadas relieved by crickets and katydids once the sun sets.  I don’t speak insect but the best guess is that they play nothing but love songs like an AM station at the beach.  Good luck, fellas.  Thanks for the soundtrack.

Happy to report that the portrait and I are still dating. We are in fact getting serious--planning our future with only details to iron out. You know — things like getting our chin and lips on straight!

So what am I sure of so far?

I think the rendering looks right but freely admit that Beverley is not someone I know. We met briefly at an art show opening where she shone like a beacon aimed at a portrait painter. Like a crazed stalker, I marched up and blurted out a request to photograph her because her fashion sense is sensational. Bev was kind enough to humour me. I was in the mood to focus the next painting on a face or you might also be seeing her bright jacket and the lime green beaded skirt. I did however take care to include three points of high colour....

You will recall that my wise friend Eunice helped me enormously by suggesting that every painting should be thought of in terms of a wedding. On this occasion the bride was definitely perched on Beverley’s nose. Those fabulous turquoise glasses with their elegant black outlining would have looked ridiculous on me but they highlighted her warm complexion and gorgeous white hair. It was a no-brainer to leave those glasses where they belonged.

The two bridesmaids were equally obvious: Beverley, who is a beading expert, has great taste in that jewelry, although it (the bracelet in particular) has been subjected to an unusual amount of cursing in the last week or so. The roped necklace is coming around but that blankety-blank bracelet needs to be completely re-detailed to retrieve its bright clean colour.

Everything in this painting hinges on capturing her likeness and the jewelry. The background begged to contrast to Beverley’s white hair, so I have been rubbing in thin films of black which echo her dark eyes and lashes. The shirt too was black but it seemed to be making the portrait too heavy so at this point I am simply rubbing transparent colours into it to neutralize that section and then thinly glazing with turquoise. Now the warmth of her skin and brightness of her hair are coming forward to frame her face.

As of today it’s now a waiting game. Only after the oil painting is perfectly dry (you can see that it's wet from the reflection), can the final toggling of values and colours complete the process. And who knows -- that shirt might turn black again.

(just be glad you chose acrylic!!)