A War of Seasons: A Dog Walker Odyssey
The sky is a soft pastel as soft wispy clouds slowly form. An unfamiliar breeze stirs up impatient leaves. Golden brown skeletal leaves dead before their time but the rest will soon follow.
A river runs through the neighborhood, mud daubers find their spaces on the muddy banks collecting for late season nests. The crows mock every step we take out of the neighborhood and into a small fragile green belt.
There’s a war brewing, only the crows announce it. It’s a fragrance of late September when everything changes. It is the short space between a Texas summer and a usually brief fall. You have to pay attention in this state, or you’ll miss the season.
Autumn 2023: A Change of Perspective
Last year at this time I was about to embark on a life changing journey. A calcium test determined I had a blockage in my heart. I knew it wasn’t accurate and yet it was. As last’s war seasons just began, I was beginning my own.?
When you begin an odyssey that questions your mortality everything seems to pale in comparison. I can vaguely remember the breeze, the feeling of change, the smell of a coming October.
Autumn and Separation
I looked out at cars and people on the street living their lives and I was completely removed. I have felt a melancholy recently that I have just come to realize. My dad died on labor day, I discovered the fragile essence of being healthy and alive 47 years later.
领英推荐
This past week, I created a pastel called the window of hope. It was a work specifically for a cancer art contest in which my art was chosen for the exhibition. As I was creating the image, I felt I was doing something special, important even as the strokes and colors affected me in a profound way.
When you begin an odyssey that questions your mortality everything seems to pale in comparison - ArtbyGordon 2024
Today I realize, the pastel is not only for those fighting cancer but for all of us. Everyone who wages war, for their health, their strength for just feeling ok. This world can often take us down if we let it, I propose a window of hope, a break from the battle, a moment out of the turbulence.
A good friend of mine said she had felt this same feeling, you be the judge. We all have our battles to win and lose, let us try to notice the nuance of every season before it ends.
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