FACING EAST
OIL
15X30
SOLD
Do you remember what it was like to travel all day … or what seemed like all day … for a trip to the beach?
It was always farfarfarfarfarfar away and it took just about forever to get there.
If there is anything more tedious than a long drive for a child, it is a long drive with your brothers and sisters in the back seat with orders to sit there and behave … as if that is remotely possible!
So there we were, all piled up in the back seat with the cooler, the big Thermos jug, towels and scratchy bathing suits, trying to be good and not kick the back of the front seat so Mom wouldn’t get upset.
Man oh man was it ever boring staring at all those trees and stuff along the side of the road, for hours and hours and hours.
But, eventually
the road began to get sandy and the curbs disappeared,
the trees began to thin
the houses began to get a bit higgledy piggeldy and less tidy,
the mail boxes were not so predictable,
the air became sort of salty smelling,
the seagulls screeched a bit louder,
and you knew… at last … you were getting there.
And then, over the brow of the hill there it was … the ocean !!!
This piece is about that transition point, and the memory of where the road disappears into the sand and the real world is left behind.
And, if the timing was good we might have captured the light as it flooded the waves with glorious colors … although I’m not sure we ever got to the beach in time to catch the sunrise, anything is possible if you remember hard enough.