Day Seven – Writing, a Cool Dip, and a Bird Rescue

I continued with my protocol of a revision in the morning and a new piece in the afternoon. However, the day had a bit more going on than just that. To begin with, I woke up thinking about a piece of writing I hadn’t thought about in thirty years: a children’s book I wrote when I was a college student. I think it came about because a former student has written a comment in response to a recent post about my beginning as a writer. I mentioned that I had always wanted to write, but it took years before I wrote something that I didn’t actually hate. The children’s book fell into that category–I had sent it to a book publisher, who rejected it, so naturally I thought it sucked. I woke up wondering, “Did it actually suck?”

Then the question became: do I still have a copy anywhere? After a tedious search through Dropbox, I found it under a name that had no connection to the actual story. I read it and discovered…it didn’t really suck. It had some awkward passages, and no real ending, so I decided to work on it and address those problems. By lunchtime, I was pretty happy with the result, and delighted to have rescued it from the archives.

After lunch, I joined Madison and Tilly for a dip into the swimming hole, which is adjacent to the pond we look out at from the front of the chateau. The pond is shallow, and is populated by ducks, Eurasian Coots, muskrat, and by some accounts, a kraken. The swimming hole is deep and only filled with humans who choose to immerse themselves in the cool waters. Given that we were in the midst of a heat wave it was a welcome sojourn.

After being in the water, I returned to the chateau and created a new piece–my second five-minute play. After the completion of this first draft, I stopped by Nick’s studio, who had invited me to check out his study in swans. His original plan was to draw the two swans that lived in the pond–but both were relocated to a more remote body of water, as the male swan had become aggressive. Fortunately for Nick, the chateau lent him a taxidermy swan that would essentially be his model. He is doing lovely pencil and ink work in his study, and I am excited what the final produce will be when he begins to weave in color. On the walk back, I visited the lavender garden outside the studios in the old horse stable. It smelled amazing!

After dinner, several of us began an unexpected project: collaborate to help a blackbird fledgling that apparently ended up outside its nest. We weren’t sure quite what to do with it–there didn’t seem to be a wildlife rescue nearby, but we were concerned because it couldn’t yet fly. Some research revealed that the fledgling blackbirds spend time on the ground learning how to forage and fly, most often under the watchful eye of the parents, keeping a safe distance. So, we decided to return it to where it was found, providing some water and shelter for protection. Once we released it, it jumped into the safety of the high grass and an inspection the following morning showed no signs of avian distress. There was half a dozen of us working together on the “blackbird problem.” This is what happens when you put sensitive, artistic types together in one place. This is how they might just spend their evening.