21 June 2023
Wagging the tail
It’s the Summer Solstice, and though I didn’t get out tonight due to a cloudy sky, I felt a pang of happiness that the afternoons will begin to gently expand each day. Nice! But we’re still in for the winter chill here on the North Coast. But all is well I think to myself tonight.
This study was from a few evening’s ago. It was a brilliant afternoon, a little on the cool side with a soft breeze. The sea was calm like a mirror reflecting back a soft yellow band of light from the sky that eventually went bright red. This was the first of three, and my favourite. This was an example of a classic winter light here that forces the sea open with an evanescent glow. Is this due to the sun at its lowest ebb? Regardless, though this isn't a great example, it's the highlight of the year when Cadmium Yellow reveals itself to be the real star of the season.
Being a Saturday there were more people than usual at the beach. A group of kids were tossing a rugby ball around with that free-wheeling and spontaneous kind of carelessness of youth, and me, up on the small dune, having a ball too.
It was wonderful to be out painting again underneath such a colourful sky. There were also the usual beach walkers and a few surfers, plus the late afternoon bathers who’ve finished work to come jump in for a quick splash. Afterwards, being the winter chill, they’ll soon be home again for family dinners or take-outs, and Netflix for most. This beach life is a postcard of laid-back Australia where people in this neck of the woods, are generally warm and affable. What can be better than to live in a community of kind and colourful people? In fact, people around here are a lot like this painting from the other night, friendly and with a sunny spirit. Being at my perch on the small dune most days, I see the entire beach so I can watch everything and everybody like I’m the cashier at Seinfeld’s coffee shop or the funky concierge at the Chelsea Hotel.
Australians, like so many people everywhere, can be quirky too at times but me, being a New Yorker, they don’t always ‘get me’ so I tend to err on the cautious side when first meeting them. I think it's because I learned to approach people like I do stray dogs on the street, slowly at first, and carefully as I gently extend my right hand, letting them approach me. If that goes well, I offer the back of my hand to them. If they don’t wag their tail I back off, but if they do, I continue letting them give me a sniff. All people, I’ve figured out, are just like dogs in many regards, and I generally have pretty good luck with them if I wag my own tail first. After lots of training, I’ve also discovered I get along easily with both specimens now because I'm a bit of a Golden Labrador myself. We're a friendly clan.
After painting here for six years now, I’ve come to know many of ‘the regulars’, I see them all, the fast walkers, the slow ones, the couples, the tourists, and the surfers. Many have disapeared. Hopefully they’ve just gone away to another town or state, or foreign country even, how exotic! Maybe one or two have died tragically, or perhaps a few at home in bed surrounded by their families. In life, people come and people go, but it’s mostly the elderly who seem to take track this category.
I miss some of my favorites whom I don’t see anymore. There was a woman who came to make long walks each afternoon whom I haven't seen in over a year. She walked quickly with a horsey sort of gait, and only after the first year did she smile briefly at me. The only time we spoke she told me she was a doctor, and then I didn’t see anymore. But there are couples with dogs who always wave at me as they come out of the path to the open beach. They sometimes say: “We haven’t seen you for a while”... “It’s the rain” I always say. And I marvel at the electric bikes that zip without any effort on the hard sand with over-sized treads. I think to myself,,,, I’d like to do that too, after finishing a painting or two.
Whether I like it or not, I’m kind of a lighthouse perched here on my small dune, visible and vulnerable, for all on the beach to see. I see everyone, and everyone sees me. From my small, humble painting perch each afternoon I also see that life is pretty spectacular, actually.
No comments:
Post a Comment