They say life is a highway. When I hear that I think of asphalt, and falling off my bike and grinding off my mozzarella skin in slo-mo. Picking bits of sand and gravel out of my major owy. Yes, life is a journey. Like a highway. Or better, like a dirt road with grass growing out of the middle section of the road, between the tire-worn ruts. What if we just floated over fields of wild flowers? If you fell out of the door, you would fall on wild flowers. Flower burn. Not so bad. Kind of pleasant really. You would smell all fragrant. And have new friends. Bees. Butterflies.I painted this "Road Trip" because I find myself floating along when I am working on a book. I am in several states at once. Joyful, melancholic, stuporishous. Where does this flower-powered back road go? It may not matter. Do I know? Seldom. My handyman/philosopher friend, Nicholas Colitses (twitter.com/AssessThyself), often reminds me,
"The journey is the destination."
Nicholas also wrote the following:
God scatters our trembling hearts
As glitter
On the darkened roadways
Of this life.
Sparkling remnants
Of a time when the world
Was not broken
8 comments:
Cool dad. How many times have you fixed one of those vw's during the journey?
Simple but important philosophy that I rarely remember. Now I'll just have to remember your red bus and that should do the trick. Pretty incredible journey so far. Just need to recognize it and enjoy it.
More times than I can remember. My VW's have busted, burned, conked, and collapsed. Gotta love 'em though, and they were pretty easy to fix.
Look at you! all bloggy. :-) Congrats. (It looks great, btw. Love the content from art to sea glass and balancing rocks).
Thanks for the nice sentiments - I am slowly recovering (I've concluded that anesthesia completely shuts down your brain. For weeks at least. Still awaiting the return of mine - along with my energy! It has left the country on an extended foreign holiday apparently).
I'm going to highlight and link to you in my post for today. I'm really glad you let me know you are 'out here'. (We're all still talking about what a thoroughly lovely day we had with you and Susi. What fabulous people you are).
Thanks again.
Tara
(Oh, and do be sure to check out James Gurney's art blog if you haven't already: http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/ . Best all-art content out there. Don't know where the guy finds the energy!)
Hi Richard, I came here through Tara'a blog! Great artwork, I shall be back for more! :)
Richard...LOVE Road Trip. Lovely. Period.
And really nice thoughts.
Thanks y'all. Each of you is an inspiration to me.
Hi Richard. I love your VW van. When I was a kid I spet many summers going to a day camp that had a fleet of red and white VW vans which were used to pick up kids and get them to camp. I can vividly see, smell, hear and feel those vans still...the put put put is especially indelible!
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