Roadrunner Redux

Roadrunner Redux / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

sold! 

AS I SIT HERE at the kitchen table Sunday evening, the wind is blowing in hard from the ocean. I feel like it's blown last week away - and honestly, I'm glad. 

The six-month anniversary of Peter's death was Friday. That was his formal death. His death-certificate death. I've come to understand that he died, truly, in the ambulance. In our road. Long before he got to the hospital and was hooked up to the drugs and machines that kept him alive into another day. Another awful, sad, day. A day that should never have happened to him. 

John Prine's death dragged me over the edge last week. Prine more or less provided the background music to our marriage. Not that we played his stuff constantly, but it was always there. A basted stitch, not a solid seam. We saw him at the Newport Folk Festival. We learned some of his songs on the guitar and played them together. And we sang along and marveled at his humor and genius and simplicity. 

I do believe in God and in Heaven, and I do believe that Peter is there, and John Prine is, too, and that, with any luck, they are playing together. 

So it is OK that I don't remember last week too well. That the wind blew it away. This is a new week, and I will put one foot ahead of the other. I will make the bed, empty the dishwasher, walk the dogs, paint some birds, and remember. 

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Gratitude

I AM GRATEFUL to have made it six months without the man I love, and made it more or less intact. Cracked, changed, marred but not broken - or at least not past repair. 

What are you grateful for? One faithful friend and reader sent me a list of 10 things she is grateful for. You can put your gratitudes in the comment area below, or email them to me. Or just remind yourself that you have things in your life to be grateful for. 

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For Today

"Art is our memory of love. The most an artist can do through their work is say, let me show you what I have seen, what I have loved, and perhaps you will see it and love it, too." 

- Annie Bevan