Evening by Anne Starr
Dusk is a sentient hour for Mansfield. We sit on pillows at the low table, finishing dinner. The construction workers are long gone and quiet descends on the neighborhood. Sometimes Mansfield reads to me from one of his manuscripts, or we tell stories. Often, we watch the eucalyptus blackening against the deep sky, the light turning until its presence and absence are equally balanced, and the world goes inside out. The massive Marin headland across the valley became a flimsy prop; the real workings of the universe are revealed as complex dimensions usually obscured and only now, in the moment of this turning, apprehensible. In the deepening light, what before was just the unremarked space between eye and distant tree, now has palpable depth, filled with intricately interwoven angulations. Then, all is right with the universe: my brother’s dying, the two small deer walking in the street below. Everything is in its place -- the echelons of memory, all possible futures -- all is contained in this present and converges in a simple joy, a contentedness of the heart. In the distance, down in the valley, a lone drum sounds, as if it always had been there, merely emerging, momentarily, to consciousness in the crossing to night, like one might momentarily become aware of the sound of one’s own heartbeat.
Artist’s Statement
My mind plays through layers of time, finding resonances in unexpected places that, juxtaposed, bring dimension and opening to something new. This feels like life blood to me, vagabond wanderings that glean messages of discovery. How else could one contain an archetypal story of bewildering pain, beauty, love and hilarity?
Anne Starr’s writing has appeared in Integral Review, June 2005, pp 85-97; “Professional Coaching: Principles and Practices” (Springer Publishing Company 2019, pp 209-220), in Emergent Learning case studies for Fourth Quadrant Partners, in innumerable business cases and personal Maturity Assessment and You Are Here Mapping profiles. She holds an MBA from Simmons College and practiced writing with Ken Schiff, in a few GrubStreet classes, and in Lawrence Kessenich’s private Duck Dog Days practice.