I got a wonderful card/letter today from one of the people I wrote a letter two a few weeks back. Abby, currently of Mystic, CT, told me about her current life among the salt marshes, her longing for the coast of Maine, and her ongoing attempts to settle on a suitable topic for her thesis. Abby’s smart, lyrical prose was enjoyable in its own right, but the whole affair was made even better by the image on the front of the card.
I love this painting. It’s the sort of thing that I wish I could create. (I should say that, according to the back of the card, this is a painting by someone named Wolf Kahn. Maybe I should track down and see if he’d be willing to teach me a thing or two.)
Exactly one week from this moment I’ll be leaving for the Philadelphia airport to pick up my family. A week seems like relatively little in the context of a month, but it seems like so much in the context of an afternoon, which is passing so slowly today.
Nice choice of a card to to send a barn dweller.
Borrow a book of Kahn paintings from Washington College or on inter-library loan. The colors will interest you, I think. He shows in Washington from time to time at the Addison Gallery in Georgetown/Burleigh Heights.
You are in fallow of your “retreat” and I think that, in retrospect, you will find you incubated important work. Forge on. You’ll be inundated with family life soon enough — and you’ll enjoy it more for this quiet time of thinking, organizing, exploring, and working.
The troughs are hard to bear, but you’ll be fine. The family will be home soon. Try another short trip to a friend’s, or adding a slightly larger social component/time outside the barn with other people component to your schedule.
Good luck.