And at night, a snowy painting. I set up my mister with essential oils on the same desk as the painting. It glows at night and illumines the painting. And there is my home.
The detail of the painting is endlessly rewarding. I love the giant cottonwoods that line our driveway, and I love them in the painting. I love the wetlands to the south of our house, and I love them in the painting. I love the oak next to the large painting– in life and in the painting.
The cottonwoods are old and starting to blow off in large chunks. They will come down in the next year or two. This landscape, like life, is always changing.
Already gone is the white pick-up truck, sold for a larger and slightly newer truck. That truck was a source of amusement for us, a 1988 Isuzu with four different-sized tires and a sticker in the back window: “Somos Michuacanos.” Steve’s daughters called it “the Mexican truck.”
It has been a long winter, reaching into spring. People around me talk about the weather, and sometimes I think: “How is it supposed to be?” Life has gotten so strange, so out of the ordinary, with attention to the rhythms of weekly chemotherapy. Monday I work, Tuesday I have treatment, Wednesday I am active, Thursday and Friday I rest and recover, waiting for Saturday, when my energy returns, and I work and pick up activity again. This week there were five days of shots to get my white blood cell count up again, changing the rhythm and raising some anxieties over new side effects that thankfully didn’t develop.
Every night, though, there is my home. I have had a mixed experience with this home– with feeling at home here. I moved here nearly eight years ago, but it was my husband’s home for twenty years before that, and he raised three children here. It is in form, style, and appearance not very accommodating to me (and my belongings). I appreciate it, but it is not a house I would have chosen. I fit somewhat uncomfortably, here.
But at night, in the painting, I am home. There is something about being inside and looking at the outside, and seeing so much of it. It is like counting blessings to call out its features:
tree nursery, wetland, garden,
house, Mexican truck, ski trail,
prairie, barn, Steve’s footpath,
garage, porch, cottonwoods, ash,
pond, electric lines, commons, oak,
sky,
field,
trees,
snow
snow
snow….
For more work by Sophia Heymans, click here.