Notes from Maine - 2026/08/09
My cousin was here this weekend. It’s great to catch up in person. Talking on the phone or texting doesn’t give you those in-between moments when stories and thoughts merge into revelations. My cousin is into genealogy and is linked up to pictures and histories that are new to me. That’s not something I study, but it’s great to have someone condense the information.
Last night we had a lively art session. A bunch of friends gathered in my dining room with pencils, paints, and markers and we all worked independently together. Nobody has the expectation that they’re going to create a masterpiece—this is just creating art for the sake of creating art, with chatter and jokes filling the air. I took a couple of swings at a watercolor tutorial that I watched a while back. It was filtered through my imperfect memory and my limited skillset. I struggle to find the magic that others tease out of a few well-mixed pigments.
Watercolor paintings remind me of Hemingway. He worked with a theory of omission, where the main theme of his work was not stated directly, but perfectly contained within the boundaries of the negative space. I think he described it as the “Iceberg Theory,” where the bulk of the mass was below the water, unseen. Let me dig up the actual quote:
“I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it underwater for every part that shows.” (Ernest Hemingway, The Paris Review, 1958)
With watercolor, the paper is the source of light. It has to shine through. You’re not going to paint every leaf or individual blade of grass. Sometimes the absence of paint conveys more than the presence. I’ve been trying to let the paper and pigment speak, but for me it’s like trying to see the negative of an image. Whatever I picture in my imagination, I have to let it invert so I know what to leave out.
In music, I think it’s akin to the way that some songwriters will use the contrast between the melody and the underlying chords to describe a richer reality than either implies. It’s not precisely the same, but has the same effect—like using a power chord to set the stage and then letting the vocalist take you to bright or dark territory.
And even staying in popular music, there’s a more complex, intricate version. David Temperley coined the term “melodic-harmonic divorce” in describing songs like Blackbird (McCartney, 1968). The space between the chords and melody in that (seemingly simple) song has a life of its own. The gap between what one hears and what one expects from typical harmony is a beautiful territory of its own.
That’s the conversation I had with my cousin, in a nutshell. Not literally—we didn’t really talk that much about art or music. We talked about family history, personal stories, and some current events. But each time we get together I feel like I learn just as much from the things that she doesn’t say, or the gaps between the stories, as I do from what we discuss.
My cousin departed this morning and my aunt arrives tomorrow. Mom really enjoys getting ready for guests, so I’ll probably leave that to her. If she reads this, Mom will roll her eyes and groan, claiming that she has to do everything. I can’t refute that. The weather here is just a few degrees too hot for ideal. The temperatures in the upstairs bedrooms can feel oppressive with the humidity. I hope we can keep it all comfortable.
My brother was here a couple of days ago, instructing me that I’m a fool for not installing a heat pump. But, of course, I should put up a couple dozen solar panels first, and that way it will all pay for itself. I pointed out that the return on investment for that kind of infrastructure is surely a decade or more, but he further instructed me that I should do all the work myself and that will reduce the expense considerably. I love how generous he is with allocating my effort.
There are merits to all these points. For years, I put off installing solar because my roof was old. Then, a couple of years ago, the tree came through the roof and now it’s all new. That excuse evaporated along with a ton of money when the roof was replaced. I upgraded the electrical panel with the kitchen remodel, so that excuse is gone as well. I’m going to let that idea sit and see if it germinates into a plan. I’m cautious about adding new potential sources of maintenance to my life. As I wrote that, I glanced around at all the pinball parts that surround me in my office. Very few things require more maintenance than pinball machines, but at least they’re fun to play. I don’t think that solar panels and heat pumps are that much fun.
