canvas

As I contemplate my next move (which will happen once the condo sells), I think about how important the commute has always been for me between home and office. I do not much care about the vehicle that gets me there and back and indeed I almost never use a car for this trip. But I care about what I see as I pedal (or walk) along. I want to be able to look up and see something deserving of a paintbrush.

And I’ve been lucky these last few years. For instance, today, I biked past a community garden. For a second, I thought I was before a late nineteenth century canvas.





Or, is it that summer makes me blur the line between what is surely art and what is merely a daily tapestry of lush color?

Biking to work along the lake path I think how this summer has been especially generous with its stream of warm days and pastels skies.





On campus, I run into a former student of mine. He is looking so sharp and professional that I almost don’t recognize him. He tells me his wife has bought some of Ocean’s photos for their home (I still sell them at a Fitchburg café and on line if someone puts in an especially sweet request, though it is so financially unrewarding and so time consuming that I’ve stopped making the effort otherwise). I think again how good it is to take a scene like that of a community garden and put it on canvas in the only way I know how.


An evening at my condo. Is it to be the last summer here? Probably.

I fix yet another summer market salad for supper. Baby potatoes, peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, almost hard boiled eggs, scallions, herbs and a Dijon mustard vinaigrette.





Unfussy, uncomplicated. Pleasure in the ordinary. Deliciously ours.