Finding your way home

Continuing in the Louise Penny's series of Armand Gamache is The Long Way Home, home being something that means many different things. Gamache and his wife have retired to a new home in the village of Three Pines to be among their friends there. Home can be the structure, the village, or the people with whom you live. It may be the feeling of safety and security that we all crave. In this story it was about traveling far in order to return in two respects to home the place and to home within one's self.

At the heart of this story are Clara and Peter Morrow, a husband and wife duo of artists. At the beginning of Penny's series Peter was the well known, successful artist and his wife - well she dabbled until she had her big break through. Very quickly Clara's star rose and outshone Peter's and he responded with jealously. With their marriage in jeopardy, Clara asked Peter to leave their home so that each of them could sort out their feelings. They set a date to meet one year later to discuss what their next step would be. When Peter failed to keep their appointment, Clara fearing for his safety goes to Armand for help.

I will leave the synopsis there since what I really wanted to discuss was the poignancy of the characters' discussions surrounding art and creativity.  Ruth Zardo, the curmudgeonly, poet laureate who lives in Three Pines invokes a quote of Robert Frost's "A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness," (Source  Robert Frost Quote) stating that writing a poem is much like coughing up that lump.

"Any real act of creation is first an act of destruction. Picasso said it, and it's true. We don't build on the old, we tear it down. And start fresh."
"You tear down all that's familiar comfortable," said Gamache. "It must be scary." When the old poet was quiet he asked, "Is that the lump in the throat?" (p.153)

The act of creating whether or not it is writing or a painting, a symphony or a dance is a scary thing to do. I've begun to work with mixed media and very often that fiend, perfectionism, sits on my shoulder and criticizes what I am working on. I've discovered that a finished piece is rarely like I thought it would be when I started. Take for instance the piece below.

Collage - brown paper bag and magazine scraps.

What you can't see is some of my own handwriting that I didn't like the look of. Instead I continued to look for images or phrases that could convey the same message. This is a work that evokes my thoughts about travel and exploration. Now compare it to the work below. These two pieces were completed on opposite pages of my sketch book. Clearly this one speaks of my desire to snuggle in and stay in one place. The two opposing sides to my nature.

Collage - Woven strips of magazine with scraps. 

"Don't get me wrong I believe in using your head. But not in spending too much time in there. Fear lives in the head. And courage lives in the heart. The job is to get from one to the other."
"And between the two is the lump in the throat," said Gamache. (p.277) Now isn't that the truth. To create you have to use your head and your heart. There is thinking to be done with the head, but one needs the courage to just get over the inner critic and do the work.

Revisiting an old friend

Louise Penny's
How the Light Gets In

I discovered the author Louise Penny one day while searching the bookshelves at my local Barnes and Nobles for something new to read. I picked up, The Cruelest Month, the third in her Armand Gamache detective series. Opening to the first page to test read the opening paragraphs I saw my uncle's very unusual name - Télesphore. Never had I seen it in print, but I took it as a sign that I should buy and read this book. I'm ever so glad I did. The story is set in the province of Quebec, home to many of my ancestors, and the peppering of French words and the unique expletives of the Quebecois (reminiscent of those used by my father) made me love the story and its characters even more. Of course once hooked, I had to read the first two books in the series and then continue on. Then came that fateful day when I put down the series. I was angered and frustrated by the direction the storyline was taking and I needed a break. I will not provide spoilers here today.

Some time has past and I found myself once again needing a new book to read and my local library had How the Light Gets In featured in a display of holiday/winter themed books (this story takes place in the weeks leading up to Christmas). What the heck, I thought, why not try again? And like her other novels, Penny had me sucked into her fictional village of Three Pines and the intrigue and corruption that was running rampant in the police department that Gamache loves so dearly.

It was nice to visit with an old literary friend. The characters and the scenery were familiar and quickly memories of previous novels in the series floated to the surface from my memory. I should have trusted that Penny would eventually make everything all right once again. But even "happy" endings come with a price. The good guys prevail but they are bruised, left with demons to battle, and still ever hopeful.

Sometimes a break can be a good thing for a friendship. Each friend taking off to explore the world, meet new people, engage in new experiences, but when the time comes to be able to pick up the threads of friendship and return to the old intimacy. Lucky for me there are more books in the series and I can spend more time getting reacquainted with my old friend.