On being grateful
Because art and kindness will see us through
We’re getting used to the repetitive rhythm of these long days in the house, but they’re not so difficult, depending on how we choose to see them.
“If we have to be quarantined, this is not a bad place to be,” I say to my spouse Janyce while leaning back in my chair, looking around our light-filled living room and out the oversized windows that open up to our backyard and woods. It’s a Friday night and we’re waiting for the mustard chicken to finish cooking in the pan in the kitchen. Soon it will transform into an asparagus and farro dish we’ve been cooking together from a recipe we ripped out of a magazine. Late afternoon sunlight is setting behind the trees. It’s the kind of sunlight after a gloomy rainy day, now peeking out in bands of brilliant crimson from behind a swath of clouds and a still misty overcast sky, casting the twisted tree branches and tilting trunks in black relief, like a woodcut print.
We drink coffee in bed every morning with the radio reporting out the same dismal news that we’ve come to expect, followed by a walk around the neighborhood, and raisin oatmeal at the dining table, prior to starting our work for the day. Before we know it, it’s time for lunch and I feed us platefuls of vegetables and rice, or bowls of soup and thick wedges of Cara Cara oranges. At 3:30 pm we have a cup of strong Scottish tea and a cookie and shove more wood in the stove. Then I turn on the radio again for the evening news. We cook a nice dinner, we drink wine, we wrap ourselves in wool socks and flannel pajamas before heading to bed early with our dog.
We’re getting used to the repetitive rhythm of these days in the house, but they’re not so difficult depending on how we choose to see them.
“Take a look at this,” I say to Janyce, remembering something I forgot to show her earlier on my phone. “This is Aidan’s drawing.”
“Damn,” says Janyce. “He did that?”
“I know, he’s pretty good!” I say. “He’s going to add the color and then send it with a thank you.”
A few weeks ago, my best friend heard that my youngest son in Nashville was furloughed from his job and decided to donate her check from the Government to him.
“Aidan is making you a piece of art,” I said to her while we were texting that morning. “He’s been working on it a few days now. Your money is the only money he got. I don’t know where his stimulus check is.”
“I’m so glad it is helping him,” she said. “SO glad.”
Once dinner is done, Janyce and I linger at the table with our glasses of wine. The rain is completely gone, and the palette of sunset colors have started to fade. Still, it’s growing brighter in the evenings and we may have time for a second walk before it gets too dark.
“This wine is really opening up now,” says Janyce.
“Yes, it’s definitely getting better,” I say.
We’re drinking the Oregon Pinot Noir that my ex-husband Jim left on the front steps for us in trade for a hefty chunk of my chocolate chip banana bread. I set the bread aside for him earlier in the day, in the same place outside my front door on the steps, wrapped in foil and bagged in plastic. He obviously spent a lot of money on this bottle, you can tell by how the flavor of the wine has developed over the course of the meal. We drink it slowly now, in silence.
The other day, an artist friend and old boyfriend of mine from long ago posted one of his charcoal drawings on Instagram.
“Can that be mine?” I typed, before anyone else could leave a comment. “DM me for details,” he said. The post was part of an Artist support pledge special he was taking part in, and the price on this work was a steal. It’s an arresting drawing. Two spruce trees standing side by side and vibrating on the page. I especially like that it’s two of them, dual subjects leaning slightly away from each other. Most of his art plays around with the viewer, and often toys with the artistic concept of duality, too: light and dark, subject and object, surface and depth. His work has a way of drawing you in, and then, before you start to interiorize too much, a hard straight line painted down the surface of the canvas will remind you that it’s just paint, just strokes on the canvas, just marks on paper.
The tops of the trees on my newly purchased drawing have been wiped through and smudged out, almost as if they are starting to be erased. The drawing is poetic in its erratic markings, like a blurred picture taken from the window of a passing car, or a grainy film still, a memory.
When we were chatting in direct message on Instagram, after we exchanged USPS tracking numbers and friendly banter, he said, “You still have a crush on me Kris Guay?”
“Always,” I said. “You’re my youth, y’know?”
“Send me a pic when you finally get it framed if you can,” he said.
“I definitely will, I love your charcoals,” I said.
“I’m glad you’re the owner of this one. I like this one in particular.”
It’s Saturday morning and Janyce hands me a cup of coffee. The dog is licking his paws at my feet on the bed, the robins are chirping their sing-song morning melody, and we have the whole day ahead with nothing much on the agenda. We have one errand only— to drop the dog off, miles from here, at one of the few pet care places still open, with a few staff members, gloved and masked, and willing to trim the long and curling nails of our old dog. We’ll sit and wait in the parking lot while they work and talk about our plans to plant new bushes along the outermost part of our yard that lines the street.
We’re itching to get our lives back, as the still cold spring season begins to show signs of the summer to come. But for now we continue to mostly stay put, reveling instead in small acts of kindness and our attention turned to beauty, to art, and the many simple comforts of being at home. And for now, maybe, that’s more than enough.