Elijah
In a month or so, Elijah, my youngest son, will graduate from high school. He has always been a good student--a lot better than me--even when he didn’t really care.
He will be the first one of my children in Rhode Island—two boys, to graduate. That should also include me. I didn’t make it through the gauntlet.
Elijah made it through a year and a half of distance-learning and the transition from middle school to high school. He is excited and proud of himself and I am too. I really wanted this for him.
We have a house guest, a relative who was down on his luck. We invited him to come stay with us from his home in Iowa. He arrived last week with a big U-Haul and his van in tow. I have been helping him put his stuff in a storage space this week. He is a smart and interesting guy, eight years my junior. He really deserves and needs a break. I am hoping we can give that to him.
Duncan is also reimagining his future. The pandemic threw him for a loop. He was all ready to move to Arizona and get positioned to start college when the lockdown started in March of 2020. A lot changed for him, he had to spend the money he had and saw his chances of getting there dwindle.
Rebecca has been working in and on her studio and preparing our yard for new wildflower gardens.
So...new beginnings all around here, in the biggest little state in the union. I am hopeful, I really am.
Last week I talked about painting in the context of the stream of consciousness. I used a painting I had done as an example. For my paid subscribers I posted a photo of the painting after I had scraped the sky away to change it, something I had not ever done. I had hoped to show before and after but at the time could only find the after. Well, I found the before photo yesterday. It popped up as a FB memory. I will post it below the paywall. Also a few basement portraits I took with friends on Saturday night--Bob, Andrew and Duncan.
As for me, I feel lucky to have so much going on and so many opportunities to be helpful and thankful.
Years ago I was the photographer for a group that took “The Pledge of Resistance” to the Iraq war. I found a song I wrote years ago that could be described as the “Pledge of Acceptance.” I will post it at another time.
For today: a song about a lifting fog. Below the paywall, folks.
Time to see what the day will bring.
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