Monday, December 7, 2009

Resonance and a common muse?


Foy-Munger House, New Bern, NC

"Even the old folks who never knew
   Why they call it like they do
I was wondering since the age of two
   Down on Copperline...."
                       James Taylor, Copperline                  
The Spirit of Place:

Even in the land where I live, which is the place of mystic illusion so illustriously named by James as "Copperline",  there are places that closely resonate with Anne Shirley's "Green Gables". 

This is what James remembers about growing up on Morgan Creek in Chapel Hill,  a place almost spot on in proximity to where my children were born and where they toddled in their earliest years:

"There are things I remember about growing up here," he said. "I remember the landscape. I remember the trees. I remember the wet leaves in the rain. I remember falling down in the grass. I remember Morgan Creek.  James Taylor

"What I remember most about Chapel Hill is the landscape. I tell my kids that we were pre-TV and there was a lot of empty time there, slow weekends when you just walked into the woods and found whatever you could to kill time. There was this long, uninterrupted time to let your imagination grow. I believe that was an important part of whatever creative life I've had."  James Taylor

A common muse?

In poetical descriptions of nature and in displaying a genius for evoking a nostalgia of place, Maud and James seem to be mystically connected by a common muse. It seems ironic that they both sift down to the common denominator of a rich Scottish heritage. James' ggg-grandfather, a Scotch immigrant built a beautiful Federal style home in New Bern in 1793.
Middle St, New Bern, NC


A resonance:
As for me, Anne (through Maud) might have been describing the landscape of my own childhood, the echo of the sea, the sage and emerald green forests, the shining waters, all of these and more were the elements in the matrix of my formative years on the Eastern Seaboard of North Carolina...another thing being Matthew, the kind and gentle elderly man who was so much like my own grandfather.  My "papa" , like Matthew, died suddenly of a heart attack when I was 13 years old, and it took the wind out of me. There has never been another like him.

"Hey, babe, the sky's on fire-
I'm dyin', ain't I?
Gone to Carolina in my mind."
                  James Taylor, Carolina in my mind