“Margin is the gap between rest and exhaustion, the space between breathing freely and suffocating,” says author Richard Swenson, in the seminal book, Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives.
The margin around the book page, balanced just right with the text, is restful to the eyes and helps the meaning emerge. I don’t as easily perceive where the white spaces of my day get crowded out. I need to take ‘time between.’
When I stop to look at the sky, I have an easy win in the margin department. Whether I draw and record, or write and describe, or not for any other reason than to have looked: it makes white space in my day.
“Margin is the gap between rest and exhaustion,
the space between breathing freely and suffocating.”
Some mornings I write a brief observation of the morning clouds as a start to the day. Or at the end of a busy afternoon, I might sink into the lounge chair on the back deck and look skyward, stealing time from the next to-do item. The habit really started in June, inspired by the mulberry tree.
Though limited in where I could go and what I could do during our local coronavirus lockdown, I resolved to sit on the back deck daily and look up at my neighbor’s enormous 50-ft mulberry tree. It is all fruit and flurry that whole month, a feast for the eyes of bird life and mammals. But I enjoyed the commitment so much, the habit kept on after the fruit had finished: to remember to sit, look, and notice. My interest moved upwards from treetops to sky.
Either way, my favorite time is the traffic jam of dawn or dust. The two worlds of creatures cross paths; some scurry to where they go to sleep, others awake and emerge. Night insect sounds stir as daytime birds flash home. The sun descends, the stars emerge. And high above, a plane still catches the last glint, though I am all in shadow. The purple martins wheel high in the sky, far above and skim and feast on insects in a dance. Far off, the Great Horned Owl gives his solemn hoot.
Always changing, there is always something of interest.
A Zero Gravity Chair
The casual purchase of a pair of these chairs a few summers ago before my mum came for a visit changed my perspective completely.
Sitting in that skyward facing chair lifts me right out of the everyday and opens up this world of wonder that dwells right at my ordinary door.
My troubles are diminished and put in the shade, though real. For a moment, I get outside that line of sight and the difficulties wait their turn.
What is this guy not doing? He’s not looking up at the sky! It’s actually quite hard to recline in a Zero Gravity Chair and not look upwards.
The Anatomy of a Storm
One day last summer, being driven home from an all day bout of hospital appointments, I was gripped by the drama in the sky above Boston. A late afternoon summer storm was brewing in towering intensity.
Once home, despite being groggy from a procedure, I stood at the front door and took in the sky. Such a melee of sights and sounds. Flashes and rumblings traveling quickly towards us, planes flinging themselves onwards away from the storm, sounds of sirens and bird song, all mingled in one drama. I just had to grab my journal and record what I saw.
I find the Pentel Sign Pen effective at making quick strokes and the scene was scribbled in minutes before the storm broke in glory and rain. I added color later.
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Leuchtturm1917 A5 Sketchbook, double spread; Pentel flexible tip sign pen; and Polychromos Phthalo Blue crayon
And later on Twitter (where I love to follow other people’s observations of local weather that I just experienced) I think I even found the very clouds I’d drawn, from a slightly different perspective.
A Sound & Sight Map
Less dramatic is quietly watching the day turn to night. I recorded not so much a picture, as a pictogram of things seen and heard while sitting in one place over time.
An ‘it does not matter what it looks like’ record of data, color added later to make sense of the groups of observations.
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Getting to Know Blue
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A little palette of watercolor paint helps you mix the color you want, but the sketchbook I was using, the Leuchtturm1917 sketchbook, is especially well suited to pencil crayon. Though they can be layered and blended, with pencil crayon you are limited by what you choose to bring.
In looking at the sky I make my aquaintance with all sorts of blue, but at first was frustrated by the kit I routinely took on walks with me.
I was stumped by the clear and high blue of a July sky.
One morning at my desk I lay out every blue crayon I could find in the house and systematically lay down color on the back inside cover of my sketchbook, then labeled each. What a satisfying exercise!
I packed the few I thought most useful and enjoyed reaching for the blue I saw on most July mornings in my neigborhood.
Polychromos Phthalo Blue fit the bill.
Take Some Time to Look at the Sky
Whether you draw and record, or write and describe, or not for any other reason than to have looked: take some white space for your day.
Maybe set out a lounge chair tilted to face the sky, ready for gazing. Maybe make a commitment to go and sit and look up at least once a day, and find space, time, and that elusive margin.
Feel the breath leave and enter your body. Listen; notice. Slow down. Rest. Wait and be still.
Remember to look at the sky.
Good Reads for Reflecting on Clouds
Header painting: John Constable cloud study in oil.