I am alone in a cottage on Southport Island, Maine.

The tide is up, the sun has gone down, and the moon is growing full.

I arrived a day ago amid surly, stormy winds that pushed my car into drunken-man swaggers making it impossible for me to drive a straight line along the center lane of the Maine turnpike. Though the wind came in bold bursts, the rain did not. It fell with vertical and horizontal determination, saturating the airspace between Heaven and Earth in the surround sound of snapping patter that was never accompanied by pitter. Temperatures stayed in the 50’s—chilly enough to get a fire going in the wood stove of the little cottage I’ve rented for one week.

I am here to immerse myself in the studies of Myth, Magic, and Medicinals at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. My one-week course is entitled: Drawing and Painting Medicinal Plants of the Physic Garden. Every summer, I pack up my books, pencils, pens, paintbrushes and pads of paper, and retreat to summer school, somewhere. This year, I am pretending to be a monk with a little stall in a cathedral that overlooks gardens I am in charge of tending, studying, and drawing for the rest of my life.

On my way to this summer’s brain and body summer camp, I stopped in Brunswick, Maine to view the Bowdoin Art Museum’s new show, Night Vision: Nocturnes in American Art 1860-1960. The show opened as I was driving by and runs through October. Such indulgent moodiness possessed me as I dashed through the gloomy rain, descended into the basement of the museum, and commenced falling under the spells of American artists who were crazy, brilliant, multi-talented, hard working, and passionate.

Night Vision is superb. It leads the psyche, via art, through darkness, illumination, electricity, romance, and altered perceptions. The range of featured artists and media is stellar. The history is broadly and surprisingly revelatory. This will probably be my favorite art show of the year and for anyone motoring back and forth on Coastal Route 1 in Maine this summer, a stop to see the show will be a highlight (or bright nightlight!) of summer. Free admission for non-stop thrills and chills and fainting spells.

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It is now twilight, as I write, after my first day of summer school and I should have studied and practiced what I learned in class today. But summer’s sun composed symphonies upon the sea and inside the forests all around me, and I found myself out walking instead.

There was a wooden bridge at the end of my street beckoning me.

There were charming gardens beside the cottage begging for admiration.

And, of course, I noticed how well suited I am for sitting still in the final light of summer’s last Monday in June. There was something else on my mind, too—three years ago on this date, my beloved father-in-law died. Thirty years ago, he would have awakened us at dawn, filled the thermos with hot coffee, revved up the motorboats, and off we would have gone to prowl the lakes of Maine for fish. I didn’t care so much about catching fish. It was enough to catch the break of day, and the quiet that ushers it in, with him and my husband and Uncle Herb and cousin Mark. We liked letting the first thoughts of the day commingle with the soft lapping of lake water rocking up against our boats. Aunt Margie and Mom Bertz welcomed us back to shore and the rest of the day was given over to talk about how great it was to be together, in Maine.

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Moonlit tranquility is arising at last to finish off day one of my summer school. The gentle drones of a distant foghorn sound like sighs of romance as I prepare to go to bed and sink my head into the pillow. But for anyone sleeping alone in a small cottage by the sea in Maine, a foghorn, before long, takes on the sounds of a moaning madman. The neighborhood, soon after, becomes Stephen King’s. And the doors—are they locked?

And the sweet little cottage, does it have a basement?

Louder, louder, louder groans the foghorn. Redrum. Redrum. REDRUM.

And the gardens around the cottage—the hedges—is the moon bright enough?

For the art-class-lady to ever find her way out?

Will she ever learn to draw and paint and name every plant on Earth?

I already like my teacher. She told me that if all I do, all week, is spend time learning how to draw a leaf, then that’s just fine. I can be a crazy leaf lady. She also said that when you are drawing, both hands must be at work advancing the cause of art—as soon as she sees one hand being used to cradle a slumping head, she comes in for a rescue.

And before we can begin to draw any plant, we have to write about the plant’s history and its healing properties. We have to write about how and where the plant grows. We have to write and write and write, using any words at all that come to our own minds, about every part of the plant, in every possible way.

I am so bewitched by the shine of my midsummer night’s dreams.

My cauldron boil-eth over.

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Views from my cottage and a wooden bridge.

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Ralph Albert Blakelock’s A Waterfall, Moonlight 1886

On display in the show at the Bowdoin Art Museum, Night Vision

Blakelock was a self-taught original. He studied the styles of the Hudson River School. A madman, a genius—some saw him as a prophet of the styles of abstraction to come. This painting was one of my favorites in the show, borrowed from the MET in New York.

AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENED in my very own little cove of the world the next night!!!

Myth, magic, and the medicinal madness of island nights.