Chasing Awe
After my late husband died, deep grief left me unable to enjoy almost anything. Nothing served as entertainment. I had no attention span for movies, books, or even television show series. Nothing worked. Even music wasn’t safe. The only thing I could stand was to sit outside, mostly by myself. Sometimes with others, but mostly by myself. I could spend hours just sitting there watching the world. I didn’t feel part of the world anymore. I could only watch it.
I ran off to my parent’s lake house in Michigan whenever I was overwhelmed. It was easier to find quiet solitude there. The lake. The trees. The birds. The clouds. I mean I could have found all that in my yard in Nashville, but somehow, I just didn’t or maybe I couldn’t. All I knew was I felt a craving to go to Michigan whenever I could sneak away. Everything slowed way down. I needed it to. My anxiety drove me outside just so I could breathe a little.
Once my thoughts would finally quiet down and I could really drop in, I found room to begin noticing. Noticing a color shift in the leaves or where certain birds nested. Every time I found something to notice, I snapped a quick picture on my phone, a diary of my days of sorts. So many of my old days were lost because there were no photos. Unconsciously I decided to do different now and document these long, passing days. I snapped sun rises and sets, dramatic clouds, the blackbirds roosting. Any number of simple daily things.
I remember noticing the position of the sun was shifting. How silly, I’d forgotten that the arc of the sun changes with the seasons until then. I started studying the night sky and the stars. I welcomed the early dark and snow as it arrived, so many kinds of snow. Big white flakes that dampen and quiet, dry sparkly snow with a crunch, wet snow that was hard to shovel. It didn’t keep me from being outside. I took pictures of the fog of my own breath in the air, patterns in the frost, and the dark lace of tree branches against the sky. Then I captured when the grey mist lifted and the green came back in ferns and leaves and grass.
All this brought me a feeling I couldn’t name at first. It reminded me I was still alive. But I had to work to name the feeling. It was a quiet joy. Awe. All of these were tiny moments of awe. Once I could say it out loud, it became more and more important to me to chase that feeling. I wanted to catch more instances of awe. It felt like little gifts to me. I delighted in their transience. They almost felt like secrets. I wasn’t sure anyone else even saw them! It brought a special thrill if I could catch it on my camera.
It was so much later before I realized all of that was subconsciously working its way into my paintings. Once I laid out the entire body of work for “Seasons of Water”, it was suggested that I should include some photography of the water that inspired that series. That made good sense, so I began to lay out the paintings and assemble appropriate photos alongside. I was shocked. I couldn’t believe how the photos so clearly inspired the paintings even though unintentional and sometimes with months or even years between them.
It doesn’t necessarily reveal itself so directly in every painting, but I continue to be shocked by the power of my subconscious and how it plays out in my paintings over and over. My job is to just keep noticing. For me, that means we chase the northern lights. We consistently go down to sunsets and sunrises. I wade into the cold rivers and look for where the birds nest. I’m constantly hanging out of the car in some contortion to capture just the right view. What joy to be on this earth.
I did this first for myself, but now I honestly love sharing just a little bit of all that awe with you too. In my paintings, in my poetry, in my photos and videos. Do you feel it? That joy? Yeah, that’s awe, my friend.
