Sisyphus Calls It A Year

So, 2020 was pretty awful in a lot of ways. Certainly didn't see that coming. Such are the plans of mice and men. A pandemic, the death of both of my parents, the passing of several friends as well. But life plows on one way or another, like a glacier, whether you like it or not. And it drags you along with it, so it is best to get to your feet if you can.

I used a variety of coping methods to survive the year. I drank like a fish. Fortunately I am a beer person and the craft beer movement has been a blessing to me. I doubled my intake easily. Had I been a whiskey drinker or a vodka drinker, I might be in trouble right now. I asked the Beer Distributer guy, who I had now become more friendly with, how business had been and he confirmed my own increase was pretty much par for the course. Business had never been better. I also began a series of obsessive behaviors built on existing behaviors, for example, I ride my bike to work each day and in a year that amounts to about 3,000 miles. I will log just under 5,000 miles by the end of this year. I was painting 4 to 6 hours a day, most days. Significantly more than normal. In a really good year I might get thirty paintings done, my best year was 50, this year 80. The end result is I made it through this fucking shitstorm of a year with a lot of scars, but no lethal wounds, not so, many others, but I am aware of the last line in Villani's book, The New Chronicle, about the plague in Florence.

A METAPHOR

This year also saw massive destruction to our beach as mentioned in previous posts. The wall of the bluff collapsed, time and time again as it was battered by storms. But amidst this destruction there was beauty. The wall of clay was transformed each time by the waves and the rain and the saturation and it flowed like magma. It would glow in the sun or radiate coolness in the shade. The surface became this magical, otherworldly landscape.

The wall had this orange-red inclusion that I believe to be iron related. It was quite beautiful against the cool bluish grays. The texture at times could be fluid and at others be blocky. Each storm redefined the surface.

The real loss for our beach was also the number of trees washed away. Some massive poplars that were at least 70-100 years old, some fifty year old oaks. For most of the summer just walking the beach was as obstacle course. In many areas the water went right up to the base of the bluff, so there was no beach.

I began to build my annual stone wall, partway through the summer when there was enough beach to actually get something to stay. I was trying to protect two trees that had been exposed right on the edge of the waterline. So I built a mound in front of them and then a wall extending in the only direction that there was any free space. This is the result.

Every week or two a storm would wash a section of the wall away and I would rush to rebuild something to protect the bluff-line. And the Beachwork evolved from there.

In this image you can see two protective piles of stone that also serve as storage for later use if they don't get washed away. You can also see how close the water is on a day when there is no wind.

I was trying to get enough stone to do four windows across the long wall and this is how far I got before the Fall storms came in. Nothing compared to previous years' monstrosities, but I was working against some pretty steep odds.

Then the storms. One after another, they pummeled the beach and the stonework. After one particularly vicious three day blow, this was all that was left. If you read the National Geographic from this month you will get an an understanding of the mechanics of what is happening on the lakefront. So as the living manifestation of Sisyphus, I had a couple of weekends to bring closure to the season of building.

This is where I leave the 2020 version of the Stonewave. I capped a second window. I filled a couple of holes and that is that. I think the beach will be safe for the rest of the Winter, as ice has begun to form along the shore, but I don't want to discount the possibility that we could get a screaming Alberta Clipper that would wreak havoc. But that is what it had become, down there. Good riddance to this year and may the next be a better one.