STILL I WAIT
When I painted this image, no story came to me at the time. Usually, as I paint, the story of the painting comes to life as I work. But this painting was different. I was merely enjoying my newly resurrected ability to paint again after my cataract surgery. But then, as I let the completed image work on me over a month or so, the story started to materialize. As it sat on an easel in my home, I watched the image, with its motionless heron waiting patiently, and listened to it daily as the painting spoke to me. The story became apparent.
This past year has been an epic one for all of us, one I’m sure none of us will ever forget. As we wait for an end to these unusual times, each of us has our own very personal and unique reasons for this year having been significant to us. I know for me, in so many ways, 2021 has been a lost year. Our world in coastal British Columbia has been rocked by extremes of climate, pandemic, strife, tension, sickness and death, division and disagreement. It’s been a year of extremes linked by times of fear, suspicion and caution. We’ll remember it as a time of masks and social distance. Community tensions, just below the surface, can boil over in the most bizarre fashion. And we wait, ever hopeful, for an end and a return to things more “normal”. But, as we wait, we are tired and weary.
Media images of heat, wind, rains, floods, landslides, destruction and human tragedy are so incessant, and seemingly never ending, I’ve actually come to a point of not watching, or listening to the news. But, the tension and stress is in your own face if you truly want to admit it. We can see it in each other’s faces as we wait.
Like all of us I’m sure, I look to the future, to next year, with hope, anticipation and in as positive a spirit as I can conjure up.
But then comes something called the Omicron variant, with the New Year on the very horizon. The human spirit is truly being tested in all of us. Pushing us all even closer to the edge, we wait for “normal” again.
And that brings me to this image of the heron at sunset. As we come to the sunset of our year 2021, and our patience, tolerance and spirit is tested once more, we again put on our brave faces. And that’s exactly how I am, as the setting sun of 2021 offers a faint hope of better times ahead. As meagre as it is, it’s that hope that I embrace. In some way, I feel just like the heron in my painting. This has to be a time of patience and calm, there is no other option. Surely, next year will be better for us all. We can hope at least.
And so the setting sun of the year 2021 brings promise, and I let that promise be my positive energy. But just like you, and just like the motionless heron –
STILL I WAIT.
