I have been walking to work at the Carriage Factory Gallery for most of the winter because we are down to one functioning car and do not have the funds to repair or replace the decrepit car.
But that's okay. The winter has been exceedingly mild and other than about a week of bitter cold in February, the walks have been either tolerable or enjoyable. Mostly enjoyable.
On some days, I have even walked back home instead of waiting for Neal to pick me up.
Today, the walk was sheer delight and long before I walked the six blocks to the gallery, I was filled with joy at being alive.
After a dry winter, we finally had precipitation rain Saturday and Sunday mornings. And not just rain...thundershowers! I awakened to the sound of thunder Saturday morning and was thrilled (I love thundershowers and thunderstorms and the play of lightning). It rained about an inch Saturday morning and just enough to get the ground wet again on Sunday, but all the growing things outside have responded vigorously.
Today, the skies were gray again, but the temperatures were very mild. It is over 60 when I walked to work. The wind was out of the south, as is usual for this part of the country, and it was also warm and fragrant. Having it whip around me from behind was quite an experience (I think it's time to start thinking about getting those hair ties out again!).
As if that weren't enough to guarantee a good day, I heard the sound of a train whistle approaching from Wichita as I stepped off the back porch. We live three blocks from the railroad tracks and the Amtrak station and I have to cross the tracks every day. I love trains almost as much as I love horses and have given serious thought to making train art, though nothing more than thinking has come of it so far. So I was delighted at the opportunity to see the train up close and personal, though I really hoped I'd be on the gallery side of the tracks before it arrived.
I was and as I walked across the platform in front of the Newton Depot, the train went rumbling through town. It was another grain train, one of numerous grain trains that have passed through town in the last week or so. Four engines leading a mile or so of grain cars eastbound on the Burlington-Northern Santa Fe line. I'm not sure whether the grain is being moved east or west, but since the grain trains are coming from the south, it seems reasonable to think that grain is being moved from the big elevators in Kansas City to a deep water port in Texas or Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Whatever the case, I felt my heart and spirits lift as I walked the platform with tons of train and cargo passing less than twenty feet to my right. What a thrill!
The God-made power of the wind, the man-made power of the train and the symbols of freedom that both represent left me feeling that life really is good, no matter what our circumstances.
I do not say that lightly. Our circumstances have not been the best in the last three years. For eighteen months, Neal and I were unemployed after he was fired suddenly and without warning at lunchtime on a June Monday. We struggled through those months and faced serious financial hardships and challenges, including the near loss of our home.
But God sustained us and drew us close and in January 2005, I became director at the Carriage Factory Gallery. In February 2005, Neal started work as a technical writer with good pay, benefits and the possiblity of moving into the engineering field.
It has been a year since then and things are improving. We are still not caught up on all those debts and one bad choice or overlooked bill can result in late payments that take a full month to get back into order.
But things are looking up. It's a difficult row to hoe sometimes, but there is improvement. I have only to remind myself to look for it.
And, thanks entirely to the blessings of God, there is also improvement in the business of art. New inquiries, completions of current portraits, new portraits to paint and, since Equifest of Kansas, new projects looming on the horizon....
I give thanks to my Heavenly Father for the joy of today, for the wind at my back, the pleasures that come with every day and, most especially, for His love and care in opening my eyes to see and recognize those pleasures.
Last week, I announced the addition of art trading cards to the selection of original artwork available on my web site.
The art trading cards featured here are quick sketches, quick drawings and studies. Most of them are in colored pencil and show a single, closely focused subject captured in only one or two colored pencils.
