Life-Affirming Tomatoes
Home from Virginia. The salt air breezes, local blueberries, corn, crab, and TOMATOES GALORE were life-affirming.
If I couldn't find Denise I'd just look out into the garden and she'd be harvesting yet more baskets of Patsy's tomatoes or out with Alexander on the dock.
Despite the lack of sleep ( six month old with a cough), the salt air rejuvenated our souls. Denise and Alexander weren't as interested in
swimming in the occasionally-full-of-stinging-jellies water, but I found it, as usual, like diving back into the womb. I love looking up
from the water through the screen of pines, hollies, oaks, up into the shapes of sky cut by limbs and trunks. Alexander was delighted
to be held just close enough to the water that his little feet could jump jump jump and splash that water just on the shore.
I painted as much as I could and Denise had a rare opportunity to read an entire book in just a few days – I had to document this:
Denise relaxing. Mama kept things going so we had a week of feeling like we didn't have to hold the roof up. We all of course chipped in
with cooking, laundry, errands, dumping trash and compost, but just feeling that someone else is thinking about things takes the weight off.
Alexander did indeed start rice cereal (not home-made, Chris, but organic!) and loved it. He also found that drinking water from a cup
held by a mama to be a very exciting experience. The attempt we made at smushed organic bananas – a no go. He was polite with the
first few bites (but a very disapproving face was shown to us), then made it very clear he wanted no more of that.
Now to finish the canvases started at the river, I head to the studio. I wish I had some of those tomatoes to take for a snack. Hmmmm.
