Dawn, Tuesday

Dawn, Tuesday

Oil on canvas, 10x10, $100

Here in Wachapreague, the sun comes up in air as clear as any I've ever seen, and fills the land with colors that sing and light that shines true and clear through air with no haze, no smog, no pollution. Whatever it touches springs to life with a sort of bright glory that I've only ever seen in the land around Wisdom, Montana.

I can't count the opportunities that have passed me by. The doors that have closed behind me, never to open. The roads I didn't take, the chances I failed to see.

As life goes on, these line up behind me, a trail of failures and misses and could-have -- even, maybe, should-have -- beens.

And yet, it seems, the right things have happened. All that has happened has brought Peter and me here, to a place where we are happy, a place where opportunity seems as wide as the sky and as bright as Tuesday's rising sun.

Yes, I hear the echoes of those doors slamming shut, and yes, from time to time, I feel regret. But today, I turn ahead, and walk forward, and try, forever, not to look back.