Friday, January 24, 2020

anchor

Out the backseat window of the minivan my son could not make out the horizon because of the fog.  He threw up for 5 hours well into Arkansas.  


Motion sickness.  Sick of moving.  Stricken by inner unease.  
It's a miserable state that obliterates the joy of travel and overtakes the victim.  


It becomes a search for visual anchoring.  

Years of traveling and learning how to roll with the unpredictable shaped my vision and expectations of parenthood.  I was going to steer my family like a migratory caravan.  


 But it's as if my son has opened a new horizon to me, an exotic one that is closer to home.


A good friend commissioned this painting with a snapshot of his two boys from 20 years ago.  It's now above their fireplace.

What's above your fireplace?