Whoa and Wow

2018. Wow.

Am I just now realizing the magnitude of this? Nearly two and a half months into it, this number, a big one, it tells where I am, how far along I’ve come since 1965. This year, this 2018, I will be 53 and will celebrate 30 years married and will see my children turn 24, 21, and 16. Lord willing. Wow.

That’s all I can say…wow.

Couldn’t I just spend my days marveling at where I am? Could I not just take a moment, a year, a rest-of-a-life to say whoa.  Stop right here. Let’s pause and gather it all in and look deeply into one another’s faces?

For it shall not stay like this. I feel it already, the pull of years to come. Like Marty in the Future photograph, beginning to fade. Or like the moment’s before Scotty beams us up, pixels waving farewell. Can we not stop the world and get off for a moment to hold one another’s faces cupped in our hands and look, really look and say I love you and always shall?

Please do not forget.

Today, let me do just that with my pen and brush. Let me caress these faces I love, the landscape of Backyard, the hay bales of Silver Dapple. Let me hold them even if for a fleeting line to say I love you and always shall.

To say, if only to myself, please…please do not forget.

This act of loving is feeble and flimsy at best. Pieces of paper in a bound book. But it is how I know to say whoa and wow to 2018. It is my way of cupping my hands around the faces I love, the place that I live, the life that I have. There are miles to go before I sleep, as Frost would say, and there are miles of lines to log in my book through 2018 and beyond.

In this way, drawing and painting my life, I will not forget. And perhaps, when I fade from the photograph and my pixels wave their final farewell, these books will remain,

saying I love you…

and always shall.

-jpe

10 thoughts on “Whoa and Wow

  1. Suzanne Glassgow says:

    This brought tears to my eyes …happy ones! How fortunate your family and all of us who have the privilege of knowing you are to have you continually remind us of all the beauty and wonder and love that surround us. Thank you.

  2. Pamela Miller says:

    You touched on a slice of thought and life, that we seldom engage. Thank you for reminding that even at 78 I still have something to cherish in using my hands and mind to create remembrances and nows.

  3. Gin K. says:

    What a wonderful post and what a wonderful sentiment. Love your drawings and I love your writing. I too find myself this year taking a whoa and wow. I turn 55, have been married 36 years and have kids 33 and 34, and grand kid 10 an 8. This year for some reason has me really thinking about life and what will remain when ‘Im gone and I love the idea of a journal with my sentiments and my art work that will remain. Thank you for sharing and thanks for the inspiration.

    ~Gin K.~

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