Friday, November 2, 2012

Storm Before the Storm II

Storm Before the Storm II
Oil on canvas, 10x10
sold

I've been watching TV of the devastation in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island, and have seen some photos of problems here in our area, and my heart goes out to the people affected. I remember clearly what it feels like to have nature destroy your stuff, your memories, your property. It's horrible. It changes everything.

Maybe, in the long run, it changes things for the better - but the people experiencing the disaster now can't begin to understand that.

In our lives, the flood that ruined our land in NY and took everything in our basement made us realize what's important.

The stuff is important, yes, but really, what is important is what it represents. Achievement, progress, goals reached. Memories. Moments. People you loved, people you miss, people you were.

Losing the stuff is heart-rending. It is. But you don't lose what the stuff represents. Losing the stuff brought the memories more sharply into focus. Made the achievements shine. No, I might never be able to replace that X - but I will never forget that I... earned the money to buy that X, or ran the race to win that X, or wrote the story or designed the page, or stood on that ski slope with my father, or, as a little girl, wore that pair of shoes.

It took a long, long time for us to recover from the flood that took our stuff, ruined our land, destroyed our driveway and made home feel dangerous. A long, long time. But in the end, I think, what nature took was ephemeral. What was left was what was important.

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