sketchbook: Wednesday 12 October 2011

WED 12 OCT 2011 11:50 am MOM'S DRIVEWAY

Have just pulled in for lunch, have a few minutes for a sketch.

A sense of dark-green forest with holes in the roof through which light shines. Mail carrier strides up the mossy walk with a package—and now back. White shirt, blue shorts. Wet leaves all around: wet bracken drooping from the planter at the center of the paved circular drive, wet fir-boughs, massed wet laurel on the far side of the circle. The carport, built in the 1960s, still looks unfinished: woodframe and plywood built over the concrete pad. A gray Saturn parked in the enclosing dimness. On the wall of plywood that covers half the entrance, a white cartoon outline of a great dove, drawn by Harvey, the property's previous owner. Green garbage-bin, couple of old lifejackets, some mismatched clay plant pots stranding on an apron of moss.

It's not exactly quiet: the pocking of a nail-gun somewhere in the distance; the dragged-out moan of vehicles topping the little hill in the road; until a minute ago, the nagging snarl of a generator at a roadbuilding site nearby. Now: a power saw grinds into something. And another car, more stealthy, grunts over the crest. Hammer blows. But also the delicate twitter of a little bird, the harsh coughing of crows, and the metallic peck of waterdrops hitting the roof of my Corolla.

Time to go in.