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“Through Violet’s Eyes”

We went to the beach at Coronado Island last summer – my mom, grandma and me. My name is Violet. The first day we got there Mimi and I took a walk by ourselves beside the ocean. Mimi is my grandma and she knows lots of cool stuff – like how starfish are really animals of some sort, called echinoderms, and did you know if one of their arms get chopped off they can grow a new one?

Pamela Murphy, Cranes

“1000 Cranes” by Pamela Murphy.

And she told me that sand dollars are animals too, sort of like starfish cousins. I really liked the part about if you break open a sand dollar, birds will fly out – doves of peace or something like that. Mimi says that’s called a legend, so it might or might not be true, but she likes to believe things like that.

She told me about another legend in Japan where people believe if you fold one thousand paper cranes you will be granted a wish by a real, live crane. So I started doing that when I got home and now I have forty-nine cranes. It was hard at first, but Mimi taught me how. And she’s helping me because she’s worried about my uncle, who is her son and he’s in the army. I think about him too, because I love him and want him to come home again. And that is what I will ask from the crane after Mimi and I have folded one thousand of them. Mimi’s a poet, and she says poets are people who want to make the world a better place, and she will ask her crane for peace. Because she worries about my brothers too, even though they’re little. And she also worries about all the little boys in the world, and the girls too, that so many of them will have to keep fighting these bad wars forever.

I think poets like funny things – like Mimi got all excited when we saw dolphins out in the waves, a whole bunch of them, and they were sort of leaping through the air while the sun was going down behind all these pink and orange clouds. She says there are whales out there too, and it makes her really, really happy to see one. I liked this jellyfish that was lying on the beach, because it was all purple and jiggly and you could see right through it! Even though it smelled bad, Mimi took a picture of it. She’s always taking pictures of stuff – like the tiny brown fish swimming beneath the rock I sat on. And the moss that waves underwater like green ribbons. The water was crystal clear in our little pool for a while, then waves would rush in, stirring up sand and it would be all brown and cloudy. Then they’d rush back out and little gold specks would be left behind, shining in the sun. Mimi said this was something called a metaphor for life. (Sometimes I have no idea what she’s talking about.)

And she writes lots of things. Like how good it feels to eat candy bars that melt all over our hands and faces; and how some kites flying way up high looked like dragons dancing in the sky; how funny pelicans are when they land; how the sun was shining on the windows of this big old hotel on the beach. Mimi said it’s called the Del, and they made a movie there once that had Marilyn Monroe in it, but I never heard of her, so I didn’t care. She also said there are ghosts that hang out in the towers. That was kind of scary, so I held her hand for a while.

Mimi asks me lots of questions and scribbles the answers in this orange notebook she carries. Orange is her favorite color. Once she asked me what my favorite color was and I said chocolate. She wrote that down. Mimi is my dad’s mom, and while we were walking on the beach one night she asked me what I liked best about my dad and I just said that I love him and he loves me. And then I think she got something in her eye because she got all teary and had to blow her nose, except she didn’t have a Kleenex, she never does. So we had to go up to the Del and find a napkin and then we got ice cream and it was chocolate and really, really good.

 

When Art Inspires Art

Door County Living presented Door County writer Sharon Auberle with a challenge, a writing exercise of sorts – choose a painting by Door County artist Pam Murphy and pen a story inspired by the piece.

This featured piece of original literature complements this original art, proving that true inspiration can be conjured up just by taking a closer look and letting the imagination loose.

Pamela Murphy

Pam Murphy’s interest in materials and techniques is reflected in the richly textured surfaces of her paintings. The figures in her paintings are taken from old photographs and provide the viewer images in which they might find something of themselves.

Murphy has lived and worked in Sister Bay since 1993. Her work is represented by several galleries across the U.S., and can be seen locally at Fine Line Designs Gallery. Studio visits are welcome by appointment.

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