Little Lights

Across the yards: wood smoke.

Wet leaves, russet, brown, brassy, quiet underfoot. Muffled snap of a pecan branch. Fattening squirrels in winter coats. If I stand still long enough, the short dark days seem filled with portents.

Winds shift and swirl. The smoke invisibly makes way to me and I am a rural kid again at my grandmother’s, screen door slapping behind or at my aunt and uncle’s, radiating in the dry heat of a wood stove filled, hissing and crackling, concealing the liquid light that patiently devours the wood inside.

Stacks of wood. Tree bark on the linoleum. Cotton canvas coats and bib overalls stacked nearby, mostly Carhartt.

Kin all throughout the house. Simple, homey Christmas tree in a corner, branches put onto the center pole one by one, multi-colored lights creating a magical shadow play underneath. Find the bad light and replace it. Ornaments made by children. Tinsel. For one or two nights, everyone gets along, chuckles together, and is content.

The pillar of smoke moves like a string in the water, a flag in the wind, but slow, always ending, always growing. Alive, yet already gone, at a distance and in my lungs, an everpresent memory, a butterfly net for thoughts. I always feel like change is coming, but things just remain the same. So, here I am at 44, holding an invisible leash on my dog, looking across two yards at the neighbor’s chimney smoke and imagining what might the Coors show hold for me. What doors will open or close? I imagine all the good that could have been if I had made different choices in my life, if I had changed things, if I wasn’t still held in place by the smokey bands that surround and cloud my whole life.

This is why I don’t look back. Always forward.

The thin, blue cloud reaches over the bare branches, and I - following its motion away and to the south - see a grey, mottled sky and hear the wind.

Portents. What will come? Will what changes be for the better? Am I doing right? Do we ever know? Will the Coors show be my first and last of its kind? I think back a few months to an email I received from one of the most prestigious Western art shows in the country (not Coors and not to be named yet). Inclusion in that show would be the second-highest rung on the ladder I’m climbing, and the top-most one I can see from here. Utterly first-rate. The first one or two paragraphs were a standard rejection letter. This was expected. Then, there was, “However…” What followed will guide my choices for the next year. Bringing that email to mind in December feels different, though, and coupled with my gladness over the upcoming Coors show makes me get still. My (real-world) work schedule changed because of the shopping season, so the time I had carved out for painting was lost again. Portents. Portents everywhere. So much vexation over completely good news.

I think that I am simply too sensitive for this world. Too sensitive and lacking perception. What an awful combination. Things hurt. They stick, and I don’t understand them. I don’t know why I’ve stared at the chimney and smoke for this long, or why on a different day - through a window - sun-cast silhouettes of branches low on the wall clutch my attention like a mute prophet short on time. I don’t know why feeling can’t be accompanied by understanding. I have generations to learn from, but not one guide. This sensitivity, this feeling deeply just doesn’t help. It doesn’t fight for itself. It wonders. It stands agape at wrong and misdeeds and “bad luck” while all others with wills twist and claw for their place in the world.

Feeling, knowing, remembering, planning - these are not enough. Something must be done. Not felt, not known, not remembered, not planned. Done.

A newborn cries in the night.

Two leaves softly tumble over the others, and I follow them until they rest. My dog noses the wind.

I think of January again. The Coors Western Art show. In one month, my wife and I will be returning from Denver and I will have a much clearer understanding of how others view my work. I am a stranger to even having “viewers.” I have no business being there. My work doesn’t fight for itself. It doesn’t twist and claw for a place in the world. What if it is unnoticed? What if …

Did I do my best? Was I honest? If it all goes well, can I let it go?

The smell of frankincense drifts in.

I did not plan it this way. Two squirrels dart and skitter after each other, claws on bark. A nest is no longer hidden in the branches, dark against the gray, soft skylight. I started a painting of a beaver dam for a deadline at month’s end. Now I just look at it. Who paints a beaver dam? “Something must be done.” I look some more. Silence. Portents. December. We don’t put candlelights in the windows at night around here in the winter. I love seeing that done. Ohio people do it. At least the ones I know. A light in the night. Portent.

The child suckles his mother. His adopted father mulls over uncertainty and wonder simultaneously. He feels, he knows, he remembers, he plans.

Coors Western Art show. January 2. Oil Painters of America deadline end of the month. A beaver dam. I am going to enter a beaver dam. Good grief. How do I justify all of these costs? Shipping to and from Denver costs many hundreds of dollars. What if I get nothing back? Questions. But it’s so good to be included. What if I had never tried? This is a small thing to be happy over. A little light for my window. I get to travel with my wife. Another light, another window. I already have the tickets, car, and hotel. Another little light. My parents are alive to see this good thing happen. Fourth window lit. If it all falls away from me someday, I will have tried to do a hard thing. Lamps trimmed and burning.

The dog walks in leaves. My invisible leash is slack. I look to the pecan tree, once full and remember that the lumps beneath my feet - now covered by once green leaves - are once green branches and once green shells. There is something in that. Years and years of fallings are under my feet. I quietly crunch the debris as I follow Cullen, the sound of muffled knuckles popping. I look at my feet as I walk. “Am I doing right? Thank you for Laura. Bless the work of my hands. How I need you.”

The child’s mother is completely lost in him. She feels, she knows, she remembers, she plans. Outside, all the world round twists and claws and gnashes in a neverending cyclone of seeming meaninglessness, around the cycle again and again, going on as it always has. Chaotic collisions. Peoples clashing without, people crashing within. Feelings, knowledge, memory, plans - all in endless conflict. Something must be done. Not felt, not known, not remembered, not planned. Something must be done. Whatever can be done? She looks at his closed eyes, searches over his whole face, asking him what to do, how to do it.

The infant yawns, still grasping his mother’s finger, then relaxes again into swaddled peace. Wonderful Counsellor. A little light. Just a little light.

And this, dear readers, is how I get over myself.