3 SUMMER COTTAGES
It’s late winter 2022. The world is mired in pandemic, protests and demonstrations, severe and unusual weather conditions and the peace of the world threatened by conflicts in Ukraine. It’s easy to understand how we all feel. All of that, along with our own inevitable personal issues, simply means we’re taking life one day at a time, the best we can, on this particular day of history.
My friend Dave was enjoying being “off the grid” at his cottage on Crooked Lake high atop the mountain foothills above Kelowna, BC. We managed to talk only by text. I needed a painting to divert my energy and attention, and Dave needed a diversion as well. So, I gave him a task that would perhaps be of soothing benefit to both of us.
“Get out there in the sun and snow and find me a painting. You’ll know it when you see it Dave. Send me a photograph, and I’ll see if I can do something with it.”
An hour later the photographs showed up, four of them. Only one caught my attention. The colourful birdhouses fixed to the post on the snow-covered shores of the lake immediately spoke to me. Somehow, they had a subliminal message in these difficult times. Surely, we’re all dreamers as we navigate the turmoil of the present. We dream of climes far away, of beaches and calm tranquility. Some of us even have the luxury of a wilderness home get-away as a place of calm serenity. If these are the times of stress and worry, so too they are the times of dreams and aspirations.
And so, I wonder as I paint. How many birds have used these colourful boxes as their northern summer destination? How many fledglings have started their time right here on the shores of Crooked Lake? Somewhere, far away, are there birds going about their daily business, all the while thinking of, dreaming of, their “3 SUMMER COTTAGES”?
