Addendum to Watercolors

Three of my great aunts were water color artists: Alice, May, and CHAAAAHLotte. Massachussetts. The Skinnah (Skinner) girls.

I remember sitting at my Aunt May's house near Worcester. Mom and I once went there with Grandpa and Grandma (Harvey and Louise) to visit Uncle "Kinnith" and Aunt May.

Aunt May always had a painting in the works. Outdoors it was oils, indoors water color. I don't know why except I think it had to do with the smell. They would be on one end of the deep front porch, May and Weeda (Little brother's pronunciation of Louise). Weeda did her embroidery and May did her paintins. The men on the other end, smoking cigars, and rocking. Mommy and I would sit on the steps in the middle, lost in the beauty of dappled light on ferns and the neighborhood retrievers galloping over for an afternoon call. Four of them, shinging and sweet, would wag themselves to our feet.

Hahvey and Kinnith would tell a "joke" about as off-color as ecru. Weeda and May would punctuate the punch line with a "HAHVEY!" creak, creak "KINNITH!" Creak, creak. And the afternoon would drift away, while Mommy and I dreamed to the rhythms of old New England couples.

That was when  first thought that painting was a good thing. The sisters painted and our house had a world of flowers and landscapes in it, from them. Aunt Charlotte visited me when I had the measles. all the way down from MAINE. And she brought  me dresses and she smelled of something faintly pungent. And when she aske dme  how old she was, I believe I said, "103."

Just about the age she was when she died. They called her Strange, AuntCharlotte. After she was widowed, she had a lady companion who was always at her side. I didn't find her strange. I loved her. I mean, there were hollyhocks that lined the walk to her cottage by the sea. Big as Daddy, they lined the walk.

Her paintings of the cottage had six hollyhocks by her door. I remember that.

It's a theme in my family, this art. Mom's brother was an artist, too. But they all did it on the side, and lived quiet lives full of complaining and sharp edges, which somehow made me sad.

Except Aunt Charlotte. She liked life by the sea, the wildness of it. And she liked being far from  home, so she only had to visit sometimes. I think I need to remember these women. Another day we'll speak of Aunt Ellen in Alaska, too.

Now THERE is a woman who loves the edges of EVERYTHING.