Talented young writer Kelsey wishes to spend several months at La Porte Peinte to continue work on her creative nonfiction book, Wonders in the Deep.
An excerpt from the work in progress:
There is a woman carved in the middle of the bay between Dinard and the walled city of Saint-Malo in Brittany, France. Though she rises high above the water and I have to tilt my head to see her whole body, I know she is made of stone, carved by someone brave enough to climb on rocks grounded in the sea. I don’t know how else she could have been planted there, perched on that jagged mountain sharpened by waves and drops of rain. I would like to think this woman was here when Jacques Cartier sailed out of this bay in 1534, her arms outstretched in blessing over his ships as they left in the wrong direction for Asia. Though he was looking for gold, he found Canada and claimed it for France. As I imagine him with a brown beard and eyes the color of dark water, I think he would have liked this blessing over his journey across the cold Atlantic.
The woman on her rocky perch, unnamed and undated, is probably shaped from the rock on which she stands, but she could just as well be made from the sea. She is blue and brown and gray like the rolling sky and waves and patches of her dress are stained darker by water.
