The Trees, the Sky, the Moon, and I

oil on canvas, 24″ x 32″      in the collection of Marge and Dewey Thompson

“Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes, Don’t Let the Moon Break Your Heart”  Another Monday, another Moon painting; like last Friday’s post, a Moon Setting rather than a Moon Rising. Started as a pencil sketch in the summer of ’81 while I was still living in Dayton, I finally developed the colors in oil five years later, once in Philadelphia. I wanted to live with a painting that only I could paint – one that depicted an ancient presence – a “ginormous,” stately, multi-armed pine tree in whose protective shade I had spent the better part of 1981; plus the miraculous stand of timeless oaks across the road keeping watch in the rocky fields. A turning point in my life – the nadir of my depression over myself, who I was, what I had become  – one of the loneliest and most challenging periods I lived through, even though I was a mere half mile up River Road from where I had grown up, from where I was formed for facing life, from where my parents still lived. The returned native was not having an easy time of adjusting to living alone, in the country, so “close to home” and yet  “so far away.” Writing a chapter on this period could drown me in tears – way too maudlin for other eyes or ears! Fortunately, friends challenged me not to stay stuck in the wallow of self-pity; to arise and move on. Which I did, shortly after Easter 1986. In the process, I gained perspective, a deeper understanding of life’s humorousness as well as its sadness; even made some progress along life’s path towards fulfilling the ancient injunction: Know Thyself. I survived my worst, most doubting self, and moved to Philadelphia, where I’ve been ever since. Thank you Don & Betty Weiser. Thank you John Hansen. And thanks cousin Marge and husband Dewey, for SEEING this painting, and making it yours.