Why am I not writing about

my six week odyssey, crossing the whole of northern America, lurking around the

UP, the Upper Peninsula during Labor Day where every fricking campground,

federal, state, county, private is filled?  I do my confinement on the

edge of Lake Superior, carefully wandering the rocky shore, collecting rocks as

everyone else was doing.  Then moving on, paddling on various small lakes

until I think, “Enough is enough,” and book down to my homeland, Rappahannock

County, Virginia.  Along the way somehow my bad feet heal, two and a half

years of hobbling.  I’m whole.  I fly back to Oregon leaving my van

to rest until I go back and continue.

After a few kisses and hand

holding with my hub who somehow allows me to run off and “find my destiny,” I

do indeed run to doggie sit at a friend’s place on the coast, the Pacific Ocean

coast in case anyone is confused.  The two little pups so tiny and sweet,

but don’t let that fool you.  They are killers too, digging for rodents in

the field above.

But what I want to write

about is my friend’s upper level master bedroom with its huge windows that look

through the fall coloring over the topaz of the Salmon River, more tree

upthrusting and finally the ocean, a menace blue line on the horizon.  The

illumination that pours into this room inhabits me.  It is the perfect

painting light, the one that painting masters catch.  It beckons and

blasts.  The bed is adorned with dogs, safe and warm under covers.  A

very easy chair swallows me. I lay out my watercolor paint box, water

container, brushes, paper towels, and a small piece of mineral paper (see more

on that subject below).  I ponder what next.  And WHAT NEXT

happened!  I had a big breakthrough, Everything Is Illuminated as

the movie says. 

I am going to get the

feeling of this day, this light, the trees and blue of sky.  I start

sloshing sky paint on, dab, dab, add a touch of red. Dab some blue to hold a

hoped for repeat color elsewhere. Enough for now.  Dry brush dab some

yellowy, greeny, browny. A bit of red. Pat my paper towel where too much water

is collecting.  Unlike watercolor paper, mineral paper allows the paint to

float on the surface, blending freely with neighbor color whether you intend

that or not.  Paper towels control the mess a bit, but I’m letting things

flow. 

Picking up a cut-up credit

card I start pulling away color to the white underneath for a hoped for feeling

of alders trunks and branches.  I must watch closely until I depart this

area for more dabbing and outright erasure of some areas, filling in new color,

the hints of old underneath.  I’m getting there, I’m just reacting. 

I channel an artist friend, Pam, in Rappahannock who has been reacting to brush

stroke after brush stroke for eons.  Hers more hard edged, mine a complete

flow.

Those puddles of color

drying with edges I find annoying are dealt with tiny feathering of a damp

brush.  But I’m going to try using those edges soon. I am getting

somewhere.  More, more, I want more.  I want a room of my own in

which to paint. A nest away from everyone where I can fill every surface with

drawings, collect more bedeviling  flotsam and jetsam, fill the space with

the smells of my new aerie here in Oregon.

October 10, 2025

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