Morning in the Hills

Morning in the Hills / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68, including shipping!  

sold!

(I've been having trouble with the PayPal buttons recently, so if you want this painting and the button doesn't seem to work, please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com - thank you!)

THE OTHER DAY, I HEARD MYSELF LAUGH, and I realized that I hadn't laughed since Peter died. I hadn't laughed in almost a year. The recognition of that fact shocked me.

And then I felt guilty for laughing, for feeling good enough and happy enough to laugh, when Peter was dead, and not here to laugh with me. 

And then I told myself that he would want me to laugh. He loved to make me laugh, and he did it better and more often than anyone in my life ever has. It's one of the reasons I loved him so much. He was gruff, and often, a curmudgeon. He was a Finn, and he had depression, and was often quite dark. But still, he was the funniest person I've met - partly because he was so smart. And so twisted.

And he could be so silly. Here's a photo montage he made of himself - for no apparent reason - just because it made him laugh, and he knew it would make me laugh, too. 

I've laughed a few more times since, and it feels awkward in my heart. But I will think of him in his pink tutu, in his many hats, in his white boots, making his dry, hilarious comments about people and the world, and I'll know that he wants me to live, to enjoy my life, to sing, to sleep well and eat well and probably most of all, to laugh. 

***

A Last Thought

    October

O hushed October morning mild,

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;

Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,

Should waste them all.

The crows above the forest call;

Tomorrow they may form and go.

O hushed October morning mild,

Begin the hours of this day slow.

Make the day seem to us less brief.

Hearts not averse to being beguiled,

Beguile us in the way you know.

Release one leaf at break of day;

At noon release another leaf;

One from our trees, one far away.

Retard the sun with gentle mist;

Enchant the land with amethyst.

Slow, slow!

For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,

Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,

Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—

For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

- Robert Frost