A Snail's Tale

 A few weeks back, while enjoying the first salad of the season prepared entirely from our little container garden, we found a tiny, tiny (less than pea size!) snail in the bottom of the salad bowl, swimming (swimming may be a strong word for it) in remains of the lemon-honey vinaigrette dressing. . .

Certain we had caused the demise of the little one but still, holding out hope, we set her out to dry on a leaf of one of our orchids and went about our day. At dinner, she was still there, not having budged at all. Neither of us could bring ourselves to dispose of her so we went to bed and, the next day, had pretty much forgotten about her in the rush of emails, shipping and making.

That night, as we sat down for dinner, Sofie noticed that she was gone! She thought, perhaps, that I had discreetly removed her but when I said that I had forgotten about her altogether, we started a frantic search. Had the cat found a tiny new plaything? Had she dried up and fallen to the floor? Did we imagine her or was she just a dream?

Turns out, none of the above. . . she had come back to life from her "death-by-dressing" and found her way onto the plastic plant tag in the orchid pot. She had crawled about a foot from leaf to tag! We got out a quart mason jar, put in a layer of organic soil, a rock, a piece of garden lettuce, carrot tops and parsley and half an eggshell and gave it all a good soaking. . . she took to it right away and explored to her heart's content without a sign of fear. . . which is why, after deciding she should stay,  we named her Alexandra the Great!

And now, two weeks later, she is thriving and has become our new permanent house guest! She's grown so fast and we delight in giving her fresh greens and eggshells each night as well as soaking her world a few times a day. We've been reading up on snails and it seems they can live 12-15 years. . .  OK, I wasn't expecting that long of a stay from our houseguest!!

She's a marvel, having grown about 4x her orignal size in these two weeks. Most of the sunny days she hides under the half-eaten lettuce leaf or curls up beside her favorite rock but yesterday she was out and exploring during the day and I took the opportunity to get a few macro shots of her (she is still really VERY small!) to share.

Another of nature's unending small miracles. . . Alexandra the Great. . . we can't wait to see how big she gets and have already been shopping for a larger home/empire for her future, larger-snail, self. : )

Alexandra the Great conquers yet another obstacle!

LOVE the shell spiral and colors. And her amazing antennae!

Thanks for dropping by!

xo
nicolas

Poem - Starling Spring

In the city, Spring was my least favorite of seasons
Winter kept the streets silent
Everyday rain makes people go inside and
Whether that was a metaphor
Or just a corner bar
Made little difference to me
In my own treasured world
I did not have to bear the cacophony of
Jumbled hearts
Or displaced souls
Shrieking in the night

The downpour of winter was bliss
And every stormy day
Sang as a liturgy of beautiful hours
And unbroken solitude

Today, in this small town I now call home
The sun is a harbinger of the season at hand
Outside my window, starlings are busily going about it
Building their March nests and
Singing their intricate arias to attract a mate
For hours on end the hopeful
Perch and croon
Preen and display
And to my surprise
Their cacophony
Breathes a beauty into the season
I have rarely felt as an adult

Spring, in all it's bustle, is suddenly
A different place
A lesson learned
An old friend
I can embrace
Once again

- nicolas hall 2013

43 Degrees

I knew it would happen. . . it was just a matter of time.

Sun broke for the first time in four or five days. First thing in the morning and just weeks away from the shortest day of the year, the sun now rises and sets well within view of our windows.  It lit the eastern horizon, cascading over the coast range and filling the inland end of the bay with warm winter light.

43 degrees the thermometer read but with no wind in sight, we headed for the beach.

As we walked down the short trail from the jetty parking lot to the beach, the huge skyscape in front of us opened up. Voluminous clouds filled the sky, some tinged with the gold light of the sunrise and some, already, white against the brightening blue.

Most of the year, if one gets here early enough, you can have the beach to yourself.  Perhaps passing one or two others who may be occupants of the RV park at the jetty or a few locals who, like us, look forward to having this curving piece of the pacific all to ourselves. . . or almost.

Especially when it is rainy or cold. Even with the sunlit morning skies, i did not expect ot encounter anyone else walking today.

However, just ahead we saw an old man walking the beach with his dog. a Cairn terrier. The man, with a driftwood stick in one hand serving as a walking stick, edged along near the water, gazing out across the rolling waves. His little terrier, darting around his feet and stopping to look out at the waves, though I suspect with a less enthusiastic, shorter perspective eye. 

Once the dog noticed us his tail went up and he began to circle the old man a bit. His excitement increased as I made what I consider one of the many universal dog gestures for "come here".  He accepted this invitation and his excitement built as his short legs carried him up the beach to greet us.

I knelt down to accept his welcome and he skittered about all around us, allowing just a moment or two of petting before turning and returning to his master. It was enough time to see that he was an older dog, the years showing in the little ways they do on our ageless friends.  Ad we saw that had been dressed in a hand knitted blue and white "sweater" that ran from tail to neck. We laughed at this and commented on it as we continued our walk.


We watched the dog a moment more, waved to the old man as well, and turned to go on.

t one point I turned to look back and saw them both, man and dog, far now in the distance.  So small against this vast backdrop of sea and sky.

And it hit me.

I felt more curiosity, about a random human being, than I have in some time.

I wanted to know if the woman who had knitted that dog sweater was home awaiting their return or if the man came here to the beach alone because she had passed.  Perhaps he came here, where they once walked together, to feel her near.

I wondered what HE thought as he watched the endless cycles of waves as he has through all of his years.  I wondered if he felt peace and contentment with his life. I wondered if he felt he had done and been all that he was meant to in life.  If he was living in the place he most wanted to live.

I wondered if he had any regrets.
Or anything yet undone.

I felt all of this curiosity that life in a city, the previous 10 years, seemed to drain from my soul. Owning a coffeehouse, people are always willing to share their stories, their joys and sorrows and I have always been one who prefers to listen rather than talk about myself. It was a perfect fit. . . but the heaviness of city life, as it careens and spirals and rockets out of control in recent years,  as people struggle and awaken to more and more unfulfilled dreams, can really wear one down.

There, it is the greatness and the loneliness of any one person caught in such a contrived and stifling landscape. It is overwhelming.

I knew that the solitude we have embraced here the last year would allow my heart to open up again to that beautiful, endless wonder.  To the curiosity about one person that I know, in so many ways, is so intrinsically tied to myself.

It is a mirror.
A view into my own mortality

And here, I feel the greatness and the loneliness of one person in such a natural and timeless world.  It is inspiring.
 
As the tears welled up, I saw myself as whole again.
I felt the joy I've found being exactly where I know I belong
Doing exactly what I believe I am meant to do.
When people say "Oh, you're an artist?"
I say, "Well, no, I just make things"
And I tell stories with them
As I always have

Such is the wonder of accepting space and silence
Of embracing alone-ness and fragility
And the endless beauty of all that we may be, every day.

It 's all there
In one morning
In one moment of awareness
In a sky illuminated with the sun's rising
In 43 degrees

-nicolas

Repetition

I ran from the ocean all those years ago. ..  like I ran from so many things because, the more time you spend with anything or anyone, the more it becomes a part of you and gets inside of you. Time spent in repetition, contented spaces and familiarity is what creates the natural space of opening.

And, so often, we shut down, self destruct or flee. . .

I found myself feeling too open in the presence of that vastness
The endless cycle, the constant.
The repetition.
I found myself feeling too vulnerable, too exposed. . . like so many of us.
So much of the time.

When I moved away from the ocean I said I would go back often to visit and instead I went a half dozen or so times in 11 years. Each time the ocean moved so much thru and out of me.

It cleansed me.
Prepared me to open
And I left

I am back now and, today, after my umpteenth visit to the ocean in the last 9 months, I felt the opening again. I felt the deeper places inside me rising.

I'm being given yet another chance.
Which, thankfully, is also another of life's repetitions
This time I am not running away

The Weight of Existence

It has been 8 months since we left the city. . .  there are ways I feel the change in a very immediate sense and then, in other ways, the changes are not as noticed until something brings them to our attention.

Yesterday morning, with dawn light just beginning to pour over the coast range,  I sat here looking out the window and watched the sky begin to glow. I turned away to begin my work day and, after a minute or two, I turned back realizing there was something outside the window that was just "off".

A quick survey of the surrounding area told me it was that there seemed to be an inordinate number of gulls and crows flying about.  To see these scavenger birds, along with herons, pelicans, swallows, terns, cormorants and geese is, of course, not at all uncommon. But to see them so close, circling and perched on the wires across the street, calling so shrill in the early morning, just seemed out of place.

As I watched, several of the birds took advantage of the lack of traffic on the road to swoop down and land at, what I then saw, was a dead seagull. It had been hit in the night by a car or truck. It lay on it's back, it's brilliant white wings spread out and slightly upward as if awaiting a deliverance from that hard asphalt spot.

I watched for a minute as crows and gulls approached and, it occurred to me that the crows were busy feeding upon the gull while it's kin seemed to be trying to pull at it's feathers. . . almost as if to remove it from the road.

A few seconds later I could hear the sound of a car approaching on the road and, as it reached the spot, it had to slow. The crows, always keen and aware in busy road conditions, had safely flown up to the wires again but the seagulls, more used to the lull of the bay and the ocean and at worst, a passing fishing boat, did not make a great attempt to get out of the way of the car.  

The car passed by going around the site and, a moment later another approached and I watched the same scene play out.

I decided I could not wait a moment longer and I immediately threw on the first jacket I could find and grabbed a large garbage bag and headed barefoot down the steps and out the door.

I reached the street and saw no vehicles coming. The crows and gulls had returned to their tasks around the fallen bird. They scattered as I approached, again the gulls not clearing the way but just moving along the road a bit,  and I stood over the gull, it's wings spread a full 3 to 4 feet tip to tip and each feather along the span still so perfectly and beautifully aligned.

I bent over and covered the bird with the bag and scooped it up as quickly as I could and, having not thought beyond this moment, stood in the street unsure what to do next.

Before that thought could be completed I was overtaken with the realization that a bird like this, that I had watched and marveled at it being so magnificent and impressive in the air, and even in the prone death pose on the ground, could weigh so little now here in my hands. The thought carried me unconsciously and I found myself then on the side of the road holding onto the bird, wrapped in the bag and I could not help but be fixated on it's lightness. . . and consumed with the thought of the weight of it's existence.

My entire day was affected. . . as was the next and still, today, it hangs there within me. 

8 months ago, and all the years prior living in the city, I would not have noticed "too many" birds gathering anywhere or if there was any rhythm or pattern to their movements at all.  I have loved birds all my life but not since the days of my childhood, when I would lay on my back beneath my grandmothers bird feeder and watch them in awe and wonder as they flew in and out of the tree have I felt that I was truly a part of this life WITH them. . .

There is no going back for me. . . the weight of my existence is growing noticeably and considerably lighter since I chose this place. What it allows for is more room to breathe and to grow, more emptying of the old and unnecessary and a stronger belief, as I often express in my visual art, that there is a theory of flight that just may allow us to, one day, spread our own wings and ascend.

nicolas

Counting Days

I watch the first line come into view out of the heavy coastal fog and I count them

9

They pass and this is followed by another line

7

Moving as if attached to an invisible cable.
Moving as a rollercoaster might as it passes over undulating hills of wooden track.

12,  7 ,  15.  4

Each appears out of the gray, rolls up and down along the shore, dipping above and below the break of the waves then banks at the rise of the jetty and moves out towards the open ocean.  

I want to be closer.
I want to hold this moment

Suddenly the two longest lines of all
33
and
21

Back to back

All move along the same path and all emerge and fade into the fog covered abyss.

I have never seen so many pelicans in my life
These are surely one of the most graceful and beautiful of birds
People think of them as awkward and big because we judge everything by the same standards we defeat our own kind with.

These are magnificent aerial angels who move with the design of the sacred
They do not subscribe to, and are untouched by,  our small thoughts and limitations
To watch them is to be transformed too

But I want to be closer
I want just a minute more to commune

6, 12, 5

Later that day we walk to the bay at low tide
I am still thinking of the pelicans
I know we will see gulls, cormorants, herons and geese
And they are all magnificent
But pelicans. . .

We walk along the exposed mud flats and, around the turn of the bay, we see the sun illuminating gulls resting on the shore

And among them, as we draw closer, the Pelicans are here too
Dozens
Bathing
Sitting
Waiting

A wish answered
This day will never come again
I number it as well
One to remember

-nicolas hall

Postcards

In the postcard, the old man is stands along the edge of a rough and stony shore
It's on an inlet or a bay perhaps
A wooden fishing skiff sits at the water's edge
Weathered and worn as the man

The scene around him is vivid and raw
Stones reach to the sky, jutting from the water
Their outlines worn and shaped by the ever present forces of time

The obvious natural beauty of the scene is not the essence of the image though
To me, the draw to it is something more
The man in the postcard belongs
This land is clearly as much a part of him
And he is of it

There is so much talk in our country of seeking in a spiritual context
And it occurs to me now that perhaps what is missing is not the lack of community or of a faith
Not the lack of belonging to an organization or a lineage
But the lack of belonging to a place
To a landscape

But instead, here, people flock in droves to the same urban bone yards
And what their spirit seeks is never going to be found there
We've leveled and scorched that landscape
We've built above and through it's heart
We've left ghosts and shadows on this bloated vista
 Inhabited by empty souls
Dead weight

Our place can't be found among the hordes and the groups born of so called common interest
That is not what we are bound to connect with in this life
We have created that purpose in our mind
To stave off the constant hunger
Just as we have created so many other distractions
So many other false starts

But maybe you have felt it stirring inside of you
Along a weekend country drive
Or at the water's edge
Across a plain or a plateau
In the forest or the sea 
Just a moment perhaps, when everything you deem your life was left behind
When it all disappeared into a dream
And the place filled you
Consumed you
Recognized you
As you seemed to recognize the place
What lie did you tell your heart then?

Often, in the end, we let all our superficial needs pull to the bone yards again
How would we live without our pleasured distraction?
How would we live without our tribe and causes?
How would we live without ambitions and status?
How would we survive?

The answers is
If you truly listened
Heard the landscape
Opened to that spirit
You might actually find yourself
You might actually find that you ARE alive there
You might just. . .

One day I hope to be the old man in a postcard
In the right place
A part of the landscape somebody captures
Whatever the background
Wheteher a storm is coming
Whether it is dusk or dawn
Whether it is sea or sage
I want to look, not like an awkward visitor
Not like a stranger
I want to look
As if I too
Belonged

nicolas hall 2012

Squeezing Through the Neck - Poem

Two blocks below
The bay pushes gently over stony shores
Marking cycles of time
As the fleet of fishing boats crawls in and out of their berths in a similar, constant rhythm

Five blocks above
The range of mountains rises sharply,
Standing still against time
Clouds hang there
Snatched upon the pines and pulled over the ridge,
Closing the roof around this little town

We are scattered along 12 or so odd blocks between
People pass through, squeezing through this bottleneck of a town
Pushed between the bay and the mountains
They must feel constrained with the long narrow passage
It must feel like choking on the palpable lack of motion
It must be why they never
Stop

We chose to stop here
To stay here
Settling into the midst of the neck
Between bay and mountain
Where the lack of
The less of
Doesn't choke us
Here, we swallow
And every morsel of this life
Tastes so sweet

~nicolas hall 2012

Climate Change - Poem

Climate Change

When it rains HERE
People do not talk about climate change
Day after day it comes
And no one thinks of it as an inconvenience
No one feels that their day is lost

Day after day it falls
And I watch from my window as people
Walk
With it
Not dashing, as if to slip as many raindrops as they can
While wearing a lemon peel puss

They move easily in it
As if it were just part of them
As if they were invisible

Now I am here
Far from that place where they throw stones at the clouds
Far from that place where umbrellas reign
Far from where no one wants to go unseen for long
Those places
Are gone now
Wiped from my memory
Due to climate change

I am here now

Moving with the rain
And I'm happily
Invisible

by nicolas hall 2012

Charity - Poem

Charity

My grandmother loved to give her money to charity
The unemployed sitting in the diner
The sisters from the church
The starving overseas
And then my brother who, daily, needed "a couple bucks for gas"
So he could drive the 20 or so blocks to his favorite bar.
My mother said she was, "trying to buy her way into heaven".

The rest of her mad money would go to buy flower seeds and bulbs
And I, who wouldn't take a dollar from her without earning it,
Planted these each year
From April through September

When I moved across the country
I called her that first February to tell her
That the camellias and the daffodils and the crocuses
Were in full bloom out here already

"Boyyyyy aren't you lucky!" she said
"We'll have to wait and see if anything blooms at all here this spring."
Her tone made it seem as if that might actually be in doubt
And I, basking in the glory of my early season, suddenly realized
It was never about giving anything to charity
Or buying a ticket into heaven
Or disappearing gas

It was simply, for her
A matter of hope

~nicolas hall 2012

Welcome By Committee - Poem

"Welcome By Committee"

He thought we were tourists and
Crossing the road back towards the docks,
He called out after us

"Where are you from?"

"We live here" we said
"Oh, really?" "Well I was going to say welcome to our beautiful land!"
We thanked him anyway and continued on

We are tourists, in some ways, of course
Just living in a small coastal town for three weeks does not wash off the last 11 years of city living.
And, we certainly weren't carrying the look of a crabber or a clammer.

A little while later we were standing on the walkway of a long, narrow pier
The wind off the ocean was coursing through the bay and chilling our warm moment in the sun
A gull landed effortlessly on the pier post just down the railing from us
She pulls her wings in and stares
She probably thinks we are tourists too
But she doesn't say so
And suddenly, I was feeling
Truly welcome

~ by nicolas hall 3 / 5 / 12

Salt Air - Poem

Settling into our new coastal home and the difference in my soul is palpable. I do not know why I stayed away so long even though I can see how things have worked out over time and it was all necessary. . . . but ohhhhhh I am glad to be here once again.

nicolas


Salt Air
 On this perfectly still morning, the fog nestles down into the ridge line,
Blurring the form of the tall trees into nothing more than a jagged sketch.
A seismograph in the morning sky
Even here, in the stillness of this pale place
As in the stillness of a pale heart
There is activity

Outside the window, more activity
People are passing through
As most do here
This is not a “place to be”
And I am pleased to be in a place where this is the rule
Happy to be free of all the corners where everyone is talking about their destinations
Hurrying into their next chapter
With so much left unwritten in the one before
 
All those years ago I was dreaming of a destination too
I left a place, just like this
All in a hurry to get somewhere
To find something
To become someone
I never would become

Stepping outside the rattling door of the little bakery
I am greeted by the squall of the seagulls
All around me the fog has dipped itself down into the bay
Settling along the harbor and covering this little corner of the world
I breathe in
The salt air filling my lungs, as the essence of who I am,
Who I always have been
Appears again on the distant horizon
Like little tremors deep within
A ridge line of activity
Recorded here in my heart

nicolas hall 2012

Turning Points

There are moments that, in retrospect, seem to be a turning point in your life.

I left the Oregon coast 11 years ago.

At the time I made that decision I felt that I wasn't quite as ready for the small town life as I thought when I first moved there in back in 1995. I had picked up my life and taken it across the country to be near the ocean, near THIS ocean, and to experience the natural world as I never had before. I moved there because, upon first visit in the spring of 1995, everything had seemingly just aligned itself and I was offered a job and a chance to do what I love.

I moved there because life was going to be simpler and, much to my surprise as an East coast boy,  a whole lot more affordable. I moved there as a stepping stone. I could never have seen beyond that first step. . .

The next five years were to be both the best and worst of my life.

When I made the decision to leave the coast, I felt I really needed the diversity and bustle of the city again to inspire me and to move energy around me. I had done a lot there and accomplished things I never would have had I not lived there. I found my voice in many ways but I still felt that I needed to be where things were "happening" and people were creating all the time.  I felt i needed to balance my life between my creativity and a job and being around people I could relate to. I thought that my work would be best served in a place more like the East coast cities I grew up in.

Basically I had a lot of excuses for what I hadn't been able to do.

When in truth, the reasons I was leaving had more to do with the fact that I had lost sight of the beauty surrounding me, and within me, and I simply wasn't ready to accept the need for the deep silence of creating. Looking back now I can see that I was actually exactly where I needed to be for my creative work to really flourish and thrive. I had the time. I had the space. And, most importantly, I had the silence.

But I left.

Now,  flash forward 11 years later, (oh I'll get to telling you all those experiences in between in time) and I really do not have any regrets. I will tell you that I have felt something missing these last 11 years but only in the last few has it really reared it's head in front of me.

I am returning to the Oregon coast in one week, albeit to a different town. I think for the last few years I have known that I've needed to willingly walk into the deep end of silence to further my work.
This is life work. Work that began years before that first relocation. Work that began in the silence of my childhood days among those wildly varied Pennsylvania skies and seasons.

Work that began in the limitless imagination of a little boy.

I've also realized that "balance" is a very delicate concept in and of itself and, for each of us, it is unique. For me, this will never again mean trying to juggle an assortment of pursuits and things that I like or fell I should be part of socially, but instead, to really pour myself into the few things my soul craves and thrives upon. Just as I did all those years ago.

So ok, I can admit that I needed these years in the city too. I needed to reach this point where I can face my own limitations and mortality and realize that the clock never stops ticking and that whether I live the life I know I am drawn to live or not is a matter of my choosing it. Nothing really stands in the way but me.

But that first step is probably going to be a doozy again . . .

Most of all I realize that what I needed was to learn how to find that deep silence here in the midst of the never ending urban cacophony of so many people with so much angst and so many stories they are dying to tell. I needed to temper my will and my desire so that, when I return to the silence of the coast, to the lull of the timeless ocean and the simplicity of nature, I will not allow the outside noises to move in again.

I will not listen to those voices INSIDE that love to tell us we can't, we won't, we shouldn't and that we aren't worthy. The same voices I now realize the noise and static of the city drowns out momentarily in many unhealthy ways.

I want to close the door on them myself. . . forever

Life turning points are like the tides of an ocean, they cycle too, which means that what we think is gone is just in the midst of a cycle and it will return.

 I started this blog to remind myself of,  and to share, the experiences I have had across these 40+ years with anyone who wants to follow along. I started it as a place to collect my thoughts and my inspirations from the past and the present. I started it as a place to speak from the silence that I am now choosing to embrace.

I hope a few of you will follow suit. . . and share your experiences too.

But for now,
Shhhhhhhhh

nicolas

"To be an artist, you need to exist in a world of silence." -  Louise Bourgeois