Another glorious Spring (more like Summer) day on Ocracoke Island.
I am set, on this Saturday morning, (a morning spreading its pale yellow light throughout the cottage), to knuckle down to work. Well equipped with supplies, (both of the edible and art variety), I needn't venture far this morning, at least no farther than our little jungly back yard for Chester's purposes.
I am feeling a sense of frantic need, as there is so much I want to explore, art-wise, while I am here on this island on my own. The time is sifting away, like a handful of beach sand, and still so much to do.
Nothing like getting down to some good hard work.
Good. Hard. Work.
Ha.
I am muttering it aloud to make it so. But the words are my father's words, as it was he who's use of that expression, (usually to get someone's help in the garden), was frequent.
I search through my art inspiration brought from home - photos, drawings, paper scraps, postcards, torn out magazine images. Some, fluttering on my fishing-net covered window, some in a box at my feet.
And then I come across what I am looking for. A few small pencil and watercolour sketches, done by my father.
It is nearly thirteen years since my father died.
His sketches, (all of ships), are quick but accurate. They are done with love, with a hand that knows exactly what it wants to put down. They are done by a deft hand, (and left hand, for that matter, in spite of his being right-handed), a hand that studies and draws ships its entire life. These drawings show ships from port and starboard views, bow and stern, in calm seas or heeling slightly in a stiff wind, both at sea and safe at harbour. They are drawn by someone who knows what they are talking about.
Someone who knows ships. That's the story these drawings tell.
My father's ability to recall minute detail is legendary. All of my life, I hear him relate memories from childhood, babyhood even. Born during the first World War, his is an unusual childhood. Full of love, yes, but unusual from a 21st century point of view. (And full of sea voyages.) A Channel Islander, a Jerseyman by heritage, (Jersey being one in the cluster of tiny islands between England and France), but born in New York City, and sent to school in England at the age of eight. There he lives with his maternal grandparents while attending Colet Court, (the prep school for St. Paul's), and later Victoria College, Jersey, when his father and mother return from the U.S. after the 1929 crash. He receives the Charles the First Scholarship to Oxford, and dreams of studying history, but, being an only child and having many hopes pinned on him, he attends Oxford to study law. His mother, my grandmother, Florence Eugenie Luce Renouf, dies suddenly just after my father's 20th birthday.
What I know about this event, is little. What I sense, is huge.
My father, who I believe had a deep and loving connection with his mother, must have been shattered by this.
Oxford. World War Two. Royal Navy.
Ships.
Wartime. Seemingly endless separations from his sweetheart (my mother), terrifying convoys, long stretches of mind-numbing routine.
Being interested in family history, I, (usually with a box of photos between us), wheedle info out of him throughout my childhood and teens. Mainly stories of growing up in New York, Oxford, the war, my parent's war-time wedding, their move to Canada, our 16 months in New Zealand.
He was a gentleman and a gentle man, my father. Avid reader. Keen gardener. Lover of ships and the sea.
Chester senses a change in plan as I gather up leash, keys, purse. The 'good hard work' can wait another hour.
At this moment, I am in need of the sea.
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