Anisette Studio

From Muddy Brook Cottage 1/11/2024

It was here among these roses, and day lilies I feel in love with books spending as long as I could reading. I would take a small pillow, and lay on the large, flat granite rock, it was very hard, but I did not mind. In this photo where I laid is covered with moss.

There were ancient Yellow Transparent Apple trees, and purple and white Lilacs creating a canopy over my head.

The kidney shaped group of purple and white Lilacs took up quite a large area of the lawn. When I was a child there were pathways and small areas where I could sit, hidden from view. This was a place to play or think.

The Yellow Transparent Apple trees were so ancient, they stood side by side touching like lovers holding hands. My mother had put clothesline between the trees, a line went from one to a Bartlett Pear tree, and from the Bartlett Pear to the Macintosh. Clothes lines were also on the porch. At one point there was one from the house to the Yellow Transparent. One summer she placed an unusual hammock instead. It was like a rectangle box, all sides closed. There was a very small hole on one side. The affect was that of being inside a pinhole camera. The world outside was now inside but upside down. I was amazed! I laid inside as long as I could just looking at the image and wondering how it worked. I could see it had something to do with the hole and the bright light coming through. I don’t know why my mother took this down, I had simply loved it and had plans to use it much like a tree house a place where I could read books, and draw. After it was taken down, I began to climb a very large old pine tree trying to avoid its sap. Bouncing on a big low limb and sprawling on it to read. When I was told not to sit in the tree I went on the road into the woods and found patches of moss to sit on. Or rock walls. I think my mother imagined I would go higher up. And perhaps that is why she had discouraged me. Or my father had not wanted me to do it. Often, I got away with it until he came home.

I got away with dressing the fluffy Tabby cat too until he came home. LOL, I had my old baby pram. It had a soft mattress. I put sheets on it, a pillow and blankets. The cat loved being dressed as he purred and purred and let me do anything with him! Baby clothes fit nicely! He was a very big cat! So, the dresses and sweater, hats fit him just fine. I would put him in there, cover him up and walk around the yard paying attention to him. He would purr and purr more. I think I was five or six then. Maybe seven. I think Dad’s concern was the cat should be too hot. Something, it always stopped when he came home.

LOL, I can hear my husband Tom’s little song in my head. “Every party needs a pooper and that’s why I invited you!” I did not know this back then. Probably a good thing. Although I always remember doing what I was told to do. The good little girl? My world was full of adults and mostly a missing brother doing his own thing.

In the summer I was sent to bed at 7. And if I was quiet, I could read until it became too dark. There was a low window, close to the floor in the little room that was mine. A pillow and I was good. If I heard my father coming, I was in bed like a shot pretending sleep.

Reading was a big deal for me. I devoured books. I could go to the library during recess and when I worked my way through the children’s books, I turned to the adult’s section saying they were for my mother.

The I discovered books with art in them, magazines with art, the Readers Digest always had art on its cover. I would beg to have the covers of the Readers Digest. I would re-draw this art. What I used for paper was the paper bags from the store.

I even acquired an attitude about abstract art, which I thought I could do this! And that there should be more to art than what some abstract art happened to be. Later I would understand art much better than I did as a teenager.

I was able to connect to the world outside as a child, and I learned to love it! It was if I too had roots or could soar upward. I spend a lot of time watching trees dance back and forth in the wind. My favorite poplar trees up back, and beneath them were wild oat flowers.

Best wishes! Pejj