Foggy Morning

 

We haven't been back to Vermont in a long time, but this is what the White River near our former village looks like on autumn mornings. Doing this pastel study, which looks upstream to the west, made me remember it vividly.

I used to take a walk around the village and to the post office nearly every morning, and would usually end by going across the long bridge and looking at the life of the river - the state of the ice in the winter; the color, speed and height of the water, which I could read like the clouds and sky; the presence of warblers and ducks in the spring; beavers in the summer; cedar waxwings in the locust grove; and ospreys overhead in the autumn. Standing at this spot, below the bridge, I can still feel the cold dampness of the fog that settles in the river valley almost every fall night, just starting to lift at nine or even ten o'clock, and feel the wetness on my feet and soaking into my jeans as I make my way down the bank through dew-heavy grasses and overgrown honeysuckle.

When I began those walks, as far back as 1979, there was little traffic on the bridge but that changed with the development of more housing; by the time we left there was a lot of commuter traffic and I can still hear the exact rattle and clatter of the bridge and passing wheels over my head, and look up to see the pigeons arrayed on the power lines stretching across the river, never disturbed in the least even by the largest trucks. Down below, I was always conscious of the great division between the human life above and the ecosystem of the river below and grateful for what seemed like a miracle of separation. In spite of the cars, the huge concrete supports required for the bridge, the salt-soaked snow the town dumped on the banks, and the inevitable detritus that tumbled down from the impoverished homes, the indifferent traffic on the bridge, the decaying diner, and hobo campfires along the railroad track, the river maintained a vitality that surprised and somehow buoyed me all the time I lived there.

Close to the White River's junction with the much-larger Connecticut, we were downriver from the rapids, but the river was still fast when there was a lot of water in it, particularly so in spring with the snow melt from the surrounding hills. Rocks like the ones in this picture had been scoured repeatedly by three-foot-thick blocks of ice and large logs - even entire trees - uprooted and swept downstream when the ice went out in March. The water then came so high on the banks that, during a flurry of village renewal, we knew there was no point in creating riverside trails because they'd be destroyed every year by the flood. Water quality increased, too, during the time I lived there. Standing on the riverbank one could see plenty of life in the water, and the dominant smells were the competing odors of vegetation growing and flowering, and decaying back into the wet earth.

I'm not nostalgic for the place we left, but I realize, perhaps better now with this distance, that there was a lot of emotion associated with the river for me, that I saw it as both companion and symbol.

One can't put all of that into a picture, but a picture can put the mind where it has not been.

Comments

[Marja-Leena]

"a picture can put the mind where it has not been" - and this has sent me remembering the river of my youth, where we spent so many summers, a place that I still miss whenever the memories return, like now. Lovely pastel, lovely memories, Beth.

[Uma Gowrishankar]

Beautiful pastel and more beautiful post.

[Rachel Barenblat]

A beautiful picture, Beth, both in image and in words.

[Denae Ballou]

It still looks the same, Beth. The street looks a little different though - the town has put in granite curbs on Summer Street and has paved it. It looks really nice. We are also putting up a garage. Beautiful painting.

[zuleme]

That is a wonderful pastel. I'm just back from a trip to my home turf. Might get back into blogging for my friends and family.
You are a very good artist and I enjoy seeing your work.

[Deb]

Love the geometries and colors of your painting. (Is a pastel technically a painting or a drawing?)

My eye went straight away to the rocks (deliciously described above) then to the shapes of color driving to the vanishing point.

When I first saw this as a tiny image on FB I thought it a realistic painting, and thought it lovely, but was happier when I came closer and saw the geometries, and of course the prose. I think the geometric forms support your discussion of urbanization.

I love rivers and rocks. Thanks for sharing yours.

[Kim]

Beautiful. I get a sense of peace from this pastel. And I love your thoughts on something important in your past. I went to my hometown on Friday night. I attended the football homecoming, planning on spending time with one friend and her family. I saw so many wonderful people, some about my parents' age, some about my age, lots of youngsters whose parents I have known. Two of the boys I went to high school with were inducted into the high school's athletic hall of fame. It is odd to feel the draw of a place and still feel separate. In my case, there was definitely nostalgia.