Ships from all over the world chug past the island. Lake freighters carrying ore to downriver steelmills and the "salties" which venture across oceans and through the locks of the St. Lawrence Seaway.
The dog is especially fond of our walks on the island. There are lots of muskrat holes to explore.
Deeply.
And new life to admire and celebrate.
There are other discoveries to be made. The seawall that protects the island from the swift river currents and knife-edged winter ice is made up mostly of chunks of recycled concrete from roadsides and torn-down buildings. Beautiful architectural details can be found under lapping waves, abandoned.
You can even find ghostly dance steps in some random pieces of concrete. I don't know how this occurs.
I wandered out to this lonely spot.
At my feet, among the blocks of plain, gray concrete, I found pieces which had been deliberately decorated with colorful tiles by artists unknown.
It would be easy to work quietly, and undetected, here. Few people venture out this way and not all reach this place. Fewer still pay much attention to a person seated low and close to the water, assuming, probably, that they are picnicing or just spending time by themselves looking at the water. One mosaic stated simply and enigmatically,"3 degrees".
The more my eyes scanned the shore, the more mosaics I saw. A kind of quiet, guerrilla art in a quiet, natural place, with the sailboats fluttering along nearby and massive freighters as the most frequent witnesses to the color and imagery. And someone willing to wander away from the crowds. With a dog as a companion.
I think I will come there again with supplies tucked into a satchel, claim a block and create a mostly unseen mosaic. Maybe several. Look for me this summer. I'll be the woman sitting low, and close to the water's edge, seemingly absorbed by my own thoughts and the sunlight glinting off the waves.
1 comment:
Someone told me that the ghostly steps are from the impressions made in the mud of the shoes of either workers or passersby before the concrete sidewalk was poured. That puts the date of these steps to around the 1920s, which would make sense, I guess. Those would be the kind of shoes worn in that period.
So they really are ghosts. And these really are their soles.
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