Mountain Bluebird with Delphiniums

Mountain Bluebird with Delphiniums / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 includes shipping

sold! 

WOODY, THE SMALLEST of my four dogs, has a pretty huge personality. He is a stalwart little guy, weighing in at about 13 pounds, but taking up three or four times that space in character and grit.

He's 14, and he is mostly deaf and mostly blind. He can see a little, but probably just big shapes and shifting patterns of light and dark. But this doesn't faze him. He begs to go on walks with the other three, he entreats The Demons to play with him, he barks at the fence with as much ferocity as he can muster - and he has finally, after nine years, decided that the studio is not a dog-killing room, but the Best Place on Earth to hang out.

My house here in Wachapreague started its life as a grocery store elsewhere in town, and was moved to this spot about 50 years ago. It's not a big house, but it has a huge living room, which I imagine was the main shopping area of the grocery store. It's big enough that Peter had one couch, and I had another - and there's still plenty of room for a dining-room table (where we piled junk and never ate), two dog crates, a couple bookshelves, etc.

Now that Peter is gone, I want to change things. I want to move that dining room table so that in the evenings, I can sit there and make cards, or paint glassware, or do whatever crafty project I'm involved in. That means getting rid of Peter's couch. So I moved it to the back of the room, moved the dining room table, and then changed the other stuff around.

And now, of course, Woody's well-worn and well-known paths through the living room don't work.

He is not bumping into things, but he is finding dead ends. I had to show him a way around some furniture that was partly blocking one of his favorite routes. He likes to sleep under the coffee table, and it took him a while to find it. He is mixed up, uncomfortable and hesitant.

I feel much the same, about the room, about my life. Neither, right now, is the way I want it. I'm not crashing into things, but I'm not sure where I'm going, either. And like Woody, I haven't found my comfort yet.

But that little dog is a trouper, and he does not complain. He will find his way. I will, too.

***

For Today

"If we did all the things we were capable of, we would literally astound ourselves." 

-Thomas Edison