my neighbor is a massive limestone complex, almost 200 years old.  and a prison.  i've written about it for as long as i've shared my life here.  i walk with it daily, along the walls.  and until a month ago, every morning, the 8 o clock bell would swim into our house and find me. filling me a little with the energy and delight to get the day started. the day i realized that it was silent, silenced me.  i sat on the porch and waited for it.  and it just wasn't.  like a heart that stops beating.  the kingston penitentiary closed and decommissioned after 178 years.this week, my friend who works at the museum prison, invited me to tour the prison as her guest. it was an honor to wander through the grounds with my camera.  it's stories and history will undulate endlessly through our little village.  

  

sometimes summer can be too weighted with expectation.  and it can slip away in the speed of living it.  but when a stretch of warm, summery september feathers into october, it cannot go unnoticed. 
today, i had to slip away from the studio in the middle of the day.  something i rarely do.  the beachy warm wind smelled of my last chance to really sink into summer.  so i walked out the door and to my little beach, grabbing a bucket off the porch to carry my treasured finds.  and for an hour or more, nothing else existed. the tumble of waves drowns out any worry.  and the water gathers around my feet, making tiny pools of sparkle and lovely.  the pebbles murmur. 

 and when I leave, my skirt is soaked past my knees.  my hair is like twisted rope.  and for the rest of the day I can smell the lake on my skin and see my feet through a quiver of water

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