“99% of people wouldn’t notice that”, he said, “and they’d just keep walking.”
the stranger had stopped where we were. i was off-trail, taking a picture of sun as it glinted off cattails. i was precariously close to the water’s edge, hidden by dried leaves and twigs in the marshy area, but worth it for the photo. d had just given me a hand-up back onto the trail when the stranger stopped.
he asked to see my photographs and i complied. and we all started talking. george spoke from the wisdom of someone close-to-80 as he recounted stories of trails he had recently taken, of people going too fast to SEE anything at all. he told us he was happy we noticed the glowing cattails, happy that we were looking – really looking – as we hiked. he told us that “it” (life) is all about looking and learning, researching, wondering, thinking and looking some more. we agree.
i’m not sure there’s ever been a hike – anywhere – when i haven’t taken at least a few photographs. there’s just so much to see. sometimes, in the middle of our not-knowing, we’ll look things up right away. sometimes, we save that for later.
just a couple days ago – in a truly magical moment – we stopped on the trail, separated from a pond by a bit of woods and grasses.
the red-tailed hawk was still. in the air – suspended on a current, wings curled up – it was absolutely still, hovering in place. though i know hawks are apt to do this as they hunt, this hawk just stayed still as we watched. then it flew a little lower and hovered a little bit more. it never dove down for any prey; it just hovered and then landed in a tree nearby as if to say, “there! that was for you.” it was a gorgeous and spiritual moment. i won’t forget it.
the trail – in both its simplicity and complexity – is a constant reminder for us.
“it’s not about you,” it whispers. “look around. there’s so much to see. it’s all here FOR you.”
the first time i joined hands with david and prayed, i cried. truth be told, we both cried. it was a powerful moment…one i will never forget. there is something deeply grounding about prayer with another person. it is forging, like iron in a hot smelter, clay in a kiln…seeking the solid base, making something stronger.
this painting, prayer of opposites, reminds me of that gift – the exchange, the sharing of peace and words of comfort, words of gratitude, beseeching words – with another. the passing of that spiritual energy one to another.
were we to pray with opposites, would we not ultimately be drawn closer?
“mom’s getting all existential on us,” The Girl declared as we drove through moab, utah to arches national park, my first time. i could hardly help myself. she had told me ahead of time that, “it looks like mars” and she was right. it is vast. and full of shape and shapeless. it was hard to wrap my head around the BIGness of it all. i felt utterly tiny, small as an atom, infinitely lucky to even BE on this earth, somehow present in the midst of all of THIS.
i couldn’t help reflect on how this had all happened, both scientifically and from, yes, an existential place. i couldn’t help what was probably a mouth-wide-open expression on my face the entire time. it is so immense you can feel it in your heartbeat. i couldn’t help the tears that flowed easily, which The Girl had predicted. i couldn’t help the wonder.
in those moments that day of gazing at what had been created on this glorious earth, i realized, once again, that nothing really mattered except that i was there, that intense beauty surrounded us, that love prevailed. i had seen yet another spectacular vista, had breathed it in, had climbed with my daughter and watched my husband take in this place, for each of us both magical and spiritual. and all would be well.
i have a lot of conversations with God. they aren’t really formal; instead we just chat. well, i chat. or implore. or express gratitude. or cry. or ask questions. sometimes my head is bowed and my hands are folded, but other times i am driving or playing the piano or walking or eyes-wide-open. for me, prayer is not just that thing i do at church or before a meal or at night before i go to sleep. it’s just an anytime, everyday way of being, with this magnificent higher power watching over the universe.
anne lamott’s book Help, Thanks, Wow is a gorgeous primer for anyone wondering how to pray, a beautiful reinforcement of the internal power of prayer, an outline of simple spiritual praying. i have read it many times, nodding my head and struggling to always remember, remember, remember the important stuff.
this painting PRAYER reminds me of the quiet, the steady rock, the essentiality of praying.
my husband is a painter. of course, you know that. his studio is steps away from mine, steps away from our office, steps away from the coffee pot. what that means is that i can just pop in at any time to see what he’s painting, to chat, to have a cuppa or bring down a couple glasses of wine, to throw myself in front of paintings he is about to cover over with a swath of new paint.
what’s really fascinating is the process of his painting. i will walk down and find pieces on the wall or the easel that speak to me and he will tell me that he is “no where neeeeear done.” he takes pictures along the way and i scam them onto my camera roll for future use, not willing to let go of the resonance of one of the along-the-way iterations of a painting.
this week is a perfect example of that. he was in the middle of a painting – a follow-up to earth interrupted I – when i went downstairs to chat (read: procrastinate doing whatever it was i was supposed to be doing at the time.) the image and color screamed out at me. i couldn’t beLIEVE he was going to cover it all up with more paint. the process was so striking. take a moment to just really look at these process shots and the morsel i chose and breathe them in:
process morsel
process morsel
morsel of a process morsel – held in process
and yet, the finished painting earth interrupted II is a stunning, stunning, stunning canvas. it belongs somewhere to get its due. it makes me feel like the universe is weeping for the earth. it makes you pay attention to it. i am humbled by how truly magnificent this painting is.
earth interrupted II, mixed media 48″ x 34.5″
each week i design products from each of the days in our melange. some of these are cartoons, some just words, some lyrics or song titles and some are david’s paintings. i have the creative latitude to choose morsels of his paintings and design from there…a enviable starting point for someone who loves flexibility. this week is a sort of brain stretch. with the exception of designing leggings, where i used both of the morsels on this page, the morsel i have used in design is a morsel of a morsel process shot of earth interrupted II (i said it was a brain stretch.) it is called held in process and is a beautiful (and absolutely timely) image on its own. how odd that it is not actually the painting, but is underneath the painting, a layer of earth interrupted II.
it makes me wonder if we ever think about how layered everything is, everyone is. what is beneath the surface…a richness we may never know, a history we can’t necessarily comprehend. where we have all come from is woven color and texture and light and darkness, swaths of paint and attempted erasures that would cause other people to stand in front and call out to us, “no! don’t erase that! it’s beautiful! it’s important! it speaks to me.” we are all held in process.
“there are angels all around you,” pete said. he said this a few years ago now and it has stuck with me like glue. it was snowing – fiercely – and i had chosen to go drive in it with my inordinately-low-to-the-ground little xb. maybe not a terribly smart decision, but i needed to purchase a special gift and overnight it, so i left home determined to get to the little shop called ‘peacetree’ and find the perfect present. i took wrapping paper, a card, tape, scissors and a fedex envelope with me, in an effort to be organized and confuse the universe with my illogical logic.
having found and wrapped the perfect gift at the shop, i looked outside the big front window and saw that, not only had inches of snow piled up in my short time there, but the plows had gone by, encircling my little scion with drifts. i looked at pete, wrinkled my face in worry and said, “uh-oh…this should be an interesting drive home.” he looked back at me, his eyes kind and clear, and said, “there are angels all around you.” there were several moments of silence between us and then he said, “really.”
my husband just wrote a beautiful post about the angels all around us…the ones who help us, cajole us, take care of us, leave us favorite groceries on our front steps for when we return home from a difficult trip, make us soup, drop off a bottle of wine, bring us brownies….people in our everyday lives who make things easier. we all have them. sometimes we appreciate them a lot, sometimes we have no idea how life would be without them. they are indeed angels and life is better simply by their being in our lives. angels all around us. i was moved when the girl told me about someone she bought a sandwich and water for outside a convenience store…he was a veteran and she felt like she was drawn to helping him by her pa, my dad and a WWII ex-pow. with not much at all to spare, she was an angel for this man, who needed help. yes, angels all around us. ones we know, ones we don’t know.
and then there are the angels that i believe pete was talking about. the ones we can’t see. the ones who are present with us, but just on the other side. how many times have you felt the presence of someone you love who is no longer on this plane of existence? truth be told, i rely on that. i talk to my sweet momma, i tell my daddy stories. i ask my big brother to help me out, to give me clear, precise thinking, as he had. i’ve seen evidence of them, trying to get my attention…my “coincidental” noticing of the big semi on the highway going the opposite direction with the words “WAYNE WAYNE WAYNE” written across it…the two cardinals repeatedly swooping in the backyard over the deck, in moments i am missing my parents desperately…the intervention i can’t explain in an accident that could have proven to be tragic…the slight smell of cologne or perfume in the air…the can falling off the shelf in the green room beside the stage on the last take of the last song (called “divine intervention”) of my very first album (the-best-producer-on-the-planet-ken and i left this sound in the recording, feeling it an important message)…
i’m not sure we can seek these angels out. as much as i’d like, i can’t just call them up. but i do know that they are there. and that blizzarding day i was out in the snow and got stuck by the fedex box, there is no explanation as to why i was able to just – all-of-a-sudden – drive out of the enormous drift into which i had slid. pete was right. pete is right.
occasionally, i see pete out and about in town. one of these times i will stop and tell him how much it meant to me that he said that. undoubtedly he won’t remember. but me? i will never forget. there are angels all around me. and yes, there are angels all around you.
reverse threading 