Early Summer Mornings

June was a cold month here this year - wet and foggy. I turned the heat on, much to my chagrin, more often than I care to admit. But July is redeeming it with warm, breezy days and temperatures conveniently in the 80s - not too hot and not too cold. I am the first to admit that I am not a morning person. I can stay up half the night but have difficulty forcing myself out of bed before eight. All those years of corporate life when I got up at 5:30 have made me very self-righteous about sleeping as long as I like.

But when the mornings are warm and breezy I find them irresistible. When the salt-water infused sea-breezes blow up from the harbor lifting the curtains and sending the wind chimes singing, I am restless to rise and go outside.

I woke at 5:30 this morning. The air in my room was hot and sticky and my head ached. The weather is predicted to be hot for the next few days and I was already in a cranky mood. I thought I might go get coffee and go down to the beach but, having worked late last night, I was still tired. I re-arranged the bed, turned on a fan, got a glass of cold water, changed into a fresh cotton tee and then lay back down.

Dorothy L. Sayer admitted in her later years that for much of her life she was very much in love with her wonderful character Lord Peter Whimsey. While Lord Peter is about as far from my idea of a delicious man as one could get, I very much admired her for having the courage to say that. I don’t know how a writer can create a marvelous character of the opposite sex without having a something of a passionate, albeit peculiar, relationship with them. I always do.

A few years ago when I was re-writing The Old Mermaid’s Tale I came to feel that first Pio and then Baptiste were genuine presences in my life. I live alone and it was deep winter and who was to know if I spent hours in the company of a glorious man of my own creation?

Right now I am much enchanted by Stash, the wise and very sexy older mariner in The Haven. This morning, when I went back to bed, I lay thinking of him and how I wanted him to develop in a scene I am working on when I fell asleep. I dreamed about him and it was delicious. He showed me the way to proceed.

That’s one of the astonishing parts of being a fiction writer - your characters have the potential to become real presences in your life. Only you can’t talk about them because people will decide you are nuts - those that haven’t decided that already.

When I woke it was still early and Stash was very much with me. I pulled on a pair of shorts, tied my hair back and put on sandals and went out to the beach. That’s one of the joys of my life - that there is no reason NOT to get up in the morning and go out to the beach. It is a sparkling morning. The sunlight on the waves was glittering silver and pale blue. A fine mist was rolling out slowly revealing the two stone towers of the Thacher Island lighthouses. There is Queen Anne’s Lace and Beach Roses everywhere. The air smells of salt and honeysuckle and the flowery, slightly astringent, fragrance of the beach roses that are as big as teacups this year. And I took Stash with me. He had a wonderful morning, too.

Artists have always enjoyed a reputation for being kind of crazy. Whether you write or paint or sculpt or act or dance or .... whatever form your art takes, you have to give yourself permission to just be okay with your own weirdness. If phantom companions want to go to the beach on a warm summer morning, you have to think that is just fine and, better than fine, quite delightful. Stash is content and waiting for me to get back to work on him and I am happy and smiling and ready to oblige.

I wonder where Lord Peter took Ms Sayer of a lovely summer morning.

Thanks for reading.