Reminders

“The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green Earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now…. It is not a matter of faith; it is a matter of practice.”

- Thich Nhat Hanh

I spent October searching and juggling.

Searching out places to paint. Searching for materials and ways to record my observations and paintings. Searching for answers on adapting my website to include my Sea Grant project. Searching out exhibition sites for my project. Juggling trip schedules and travel and transportation to barrier islands. And juggling a full time job in the midst of it all.

Searching and juggling a million little decisions is not for the faint of heart. And for someone who is often attention challenged there were days that sent me spinning from one thing to another with nothing resolved at the end of the day and often, the end of the week. It was a month of frustration in a lot of ways. And a reminder, things just don’t fall into place because you want them to. Repeat after me… I am not in control of the universe.

Just trying to plan out my trips to barrier islands is challenge enough in itself. Life on the coast is subject to weather. Too much wind, an unexpected storm and everything is cancelled. And weather here seems to only be reliably predicted for the next fifteen minutes. Adding to that, there are permissions to be granted to visit several of Georgia’s privately owned barrier islands. A huge and involved process made more complicated by foundations not always eager to give those permissions. So it is a bit of a dance. A time consuming one in which answers don’t come easy or quickly. And did I say frustrating? Over the past month, I’ve done a bit of battle with the part of myself that is ruled by impatience.

Once more for the people in the back… I am not in control of the universe.

But then I realized something. It is my job to create the excitement about what I am doing. Not the people I am asking for help. It is an interesting position that I find myself in. I create paintings based on what moves me and then put them out into the world where they hopefully find a home with someone that is similarly moved. This project is a little different. I have to generate excitement and spark interest before anything has even been created. Putting the idea out into the world before painting feels abstract and uncomfortable and opposite of how I work. It is a stretch for me. Another point to which I remind myself, growth is found in the uncomfortable.

“At any moment, you have a choice, that either leads you closer to your spirit or further away from it.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

This morning the marsh is a bright saffron and the water is high. I spent yesterday outside with my sketchbook surrounded by all that gold. It seems everything right now is soaked in some shade of yellow, from the dunes to the marsh to the sky in the evening. The abundance of gold is a reminder of just how rich this place is. An environment complex with layers upon layers of grasses and vines and plants, sand, trees and water. The layers of living and dead intermingle, always combining to form a new present tense. Color is never the same twice, every glance reveals another nuance that was missed the last time. It is an extremely difficult place to paint accurately. Taking it all in and finding a way to simplify it enough to tell the story often seems an impossible job. Every so often I feel myself getting close but dang, is it hard. Yet the challenge is what makes it worthwhile. And this project is an amplification of that. Another reminder surfaces.

It is the hours spent on the deserted beach of an uninhabited island that reaffirm the mission of this project I have undertaken. I know that I am on the right path and exactly where I need to be, discovering and sketching and writing and just drinking it all in. It is always the little things that call to me… that light on the rippling wet sand, the path the water left behind, the pattern of grasses woven like tapestry, the exposed roots of trees left standing as the earth has collapsed around them. This beauty of destruction is compelling. It moves me. There is the sadness of what has been lost, the uncertainty of what is to come and yet the glory and dignity of nature still shines brilliantly even as she succumbs to change. It begs to be painted for so many reasons, not the least of which is to provide a record of what is right now.

Despite our human efforts to thwart it, the refrain of change is the loudest, ringing through this coastal landscape with certainty. It is a lesson to be learned over and over. A reminder that everything here is temporary. Even difficulties.

Take care and hold very tight to good thoughts.