Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Our Old House

Our Old House
Oil on canvas, 10x10, $100
sold

This peaceful-looking little stream ran through a culvert below our driveway at our house in New York. The driveway dipped from the level of the house, down to cross the culvert, and then up again to meet the street.

Behind our house, the Neversink River ran, its water tea-colored and clean. Birds flew up and down it regularly, and ducks swam on its surface. Great blue herons fished nearly daily, and from time to time, you could see and hear eagles.

And then there were the floods. The river would rise quickly, pushing its way up toward our house. And at a certain point, the river would split and come around in front, turning this usually quiet creek into a raging torrent that would tear up our driveway, breaking concrete into chunks, throwing boulders downstream and, potentially, trapping us in our home.

Most of the time, this was a beautiful, lovely place to live. In the floods, it was a terrifying, horrible, frightening spot.

I've gotten over my fear of heavy rain, and now, I can think of our house in New York with pleasure, remembering how beautiful it was, how much fun it was to listen to the river, and see its wildlife, and live along its banks.

jacobson arts is located in gales ferry, CT

2 comments:

Sandeep Palakkal said...

Beautiful. I wish I were also there in that painting!

carrie jacobson said...

Ah, Sandeep, I wish I were there, too - when the river was peaceful! It was a bad place to be when it was not peaceful - but all those other days, there was no better place to live. Thank you for the support.