It's January at last and I'm back at school after a wonderful 2 week break, glad to leave last month behind. December is difficult. I find there's too little sunlight, too little time to get outside (let alone paint!), and too little courage to face the darkening days. This December brought a particular heaviness with the tragedies in Newtown. Each day over the past 4 weeks has haunted me with at least one thought of that awful day....but with the sadness also comes a renewed love and appreciation for life and loved ones, for my young students in particular and their great joy of life! A tragedy sometimes helps one find even more reason to teach, make music, make art: create hope.
Though January is the beginning of a cold, grey season, I celebrate the slow return of of the light this month. I'm thankful for a classroom with many windows and a workplace where I can step outside during the day and see children play. I'm thankful for the beauty of a fresh snowfall and the chance to play in it. I'm thankful for old friends who invite me out for a walk in it!
On a recent visit to the island over the holiday, my childhood friend, Emily happened to be home and called the house one morning after a storm that brought a couple inches of snow. She wanted to know if we would take a walk with her to the marsh via the Sputnick Trail, known by islanders as "Bo-bo Road" because there is a "broken-down truck" in the middle of it and that is the way it was pronounced at one time by a very young Fernald boy.
The marsh is possibly the most beautiful place on the island. The woods we walked through open out to a plane of yellow grass and heather which meets a saltwater pond separated from the ocean by a cluster of trees named "Dead Man's Island" (unsure where the name came from), which confronts the sea beneath a dramatic view of Cadillac and surrounding mountains. I painted this scene of it last weekend, hopefully the first of many of this motif.
I don't love winter, but I do love it's colors.
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