Friends –
I never had any desire to learn to write poetry, once I got beyond the requisite ‘Roses are Red, Violets are Blue’ stage in elementary school. I’m making no excuses. I just did not have any interest.
But when I get down to writing about this painting and what it represents to me, I find that my typical narrative formula is lacking. Something. Perhaps the power of prose would serve me better.
I can only tell you that a recent backpack trip with Xochitl in the El Dorado National Forest high country was so perfectly what I needed for so many reasons. It cured me of the emotional scratches and scrapes that the past 6-7 years have wreaked on my emotional brain cells. It reminded my body of the joyous discomfort that comes from carrying a load up and down through the woods and finding that I still recover once the pack is dropped. It brought me the pleasure of tasting the sweet water from a high mountain lake. Pure snow melt. There is nothing like it. The trip tickled my olfactory nerves with the fragrances from mules’ ear blooms, wet pine mulch, warming granite, and ozone from nearby lightening. It delighted my visual senses with the atmospheric light changes that only happen when you are sitting on the top of the world complete with the discovery of the bright stars, planets and the milky way by night. By day, we had young ducklings, butterflies and even baby dragonflies drying their wings in the breeze while clinging to water weeds. And, best of all, our ears were treated with the songs of a chorus of frogs that messaged each other (or me?) all night long until the morning birds took over at first light.
It cured me. And I can promise you that I won’t ever again let 7 years go by without spending overnight visits in these places that mean so much to me.
‘The Cure’ is a14x18” oil painting and it is available for a donation to a worthwhile and relevant non-profit. Let me know if you are interested.
margie lopez read
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