Note Entry: Not Too Fast, But For Sure

The seasons tend to pass slowly enough through their transition and change that you find yourself suddenly in a different place. Maybe a new direction. A change of pace. When those moments give you pause, it is a good time to stop to consider the landscape.

This park is where I've come back to through the years. It started off as a place I'd bring my nanny kids. We would feed the ducks, get chased by angry geese, enjoy the fresh spring breeze coming off the river and skip rocks while I'd sing to them. It seemed like such a long walk, however we would finally find our way to its end. The end was a peninsula where the bench sat overlooking the still water quietly lapping upon the shore.

The railroad tracks traveled along the horizon. If we were lucky, we were already on the path ready to watch a long freight train hum past. You could feel the rhythm across the tracks. It was the moment of refreshing only quiet could give us.

It was a time of change in my life where I found myself going back to that bench at the bend in the path. Most likely true to the reality of a bend in the road of my life to consider the change in season and aim to quiet my heart as I surrendered to the goodness weaving its way in and through my life.

At the time, I had a dear friend who was generations older than me. Those kinds of friends are the best kind. Her years became to me a refreshing breeze of perspective which would blow through just when I would need. Dorothy wrote to me in a letter after a visit where I was considering a new bend in the road. She wrote, "Not too fast, but for sure."

Her wisdom was not her own, but she pressed on to make it her own. As I pressed on as a new wife and momma, her words helped me consider my way, the aim of my hope and stay. 

This moment I left to cure in oil and paint is a view, a perspective I aim to consider at each bend in my road of my dear friend, Dorothy. I miss her dearly.  I see the place she has had in the underpainting on the canvas of my life were strokes of grace laid the structure for the remaining layers yet to be laid. Not too fast, but for sure. 

"Not Too Fast, But For Sure"

Oil on Belgian Linen

36" x 30"