The Rainy Middle

I was re-reading sections I had highlighted in artist Emily Carr’s wonderful journals Hundreds and Thousands.

Presently I am in the middle of a project.  And, as often happens, I feel as Emily Carr did in this entry about a camping trip to Esquimalt Lagoon. Perhaps you can relate also?

“Fool, fool, fool, that is what I called myself,” she wrote.  “To leave a comfortable home to be drowned and frozen, to cope with wet wood and primitive stove and the bucksaw and water lugged from the spring, this pattering through puddles in a cotton nightgown and rainboots and pleading with the wet wood while hunger and hot-drink longings gnaw your vitals.”

In my case this coping is with a river of research, a snarled plot and a weak outline.  Sometimes I wonder if this “pattering through puddles” is taking me anywhere!

But I take hope from Emily’s camping experience.

“At last,” she relates, “the fire began to burn the sticks, the kettle began to boil, the sun began to shine and I began a new chapter.”

I’m off to put the electric kettle on—no fire needed.  A new chapter awaits.

Good luck on your projects, and may you get through the rainy middle!