Good morning!
I hope you're doing well and feeling happy. I wanted to write to you before Thanksgiving this year. I've so much to be thankful for! Friends and art are a couple of them.
And the other day I was invited by a friend to attend an art talk at the college. It was spur of the moment, but it sounded like a great idea.
At the beginning of the talk, the artist said something that gave me pause to consider. He said he had wanted to capture the aloneness of the landscape. I had the feeling he meant an empty feeling of aloneness.
It made me think about how some people don't like solitude. Especially the solitude of being in nature alone. They just aren't comfortable when in an unpopulated area.
About ten years ago I met a woman from San Diego. She was in Wyoming for the first statewide plein air event held here. We met in Cheyenne and I invited her to stay at our house as she was heading to Yellowstone and that area to paint.
When she got here, she told us about driving between Laramie and Wheatland on Highway 34. She hadn't met one vehicle all the way and had no cell phone service. It was unnerving and frightening to her.
As I've gotten older I'm not as cocky as I used to be and I'm certainly more aware of what could go wrong along an expanse of lonely highway with no cell phone service.
But I still love the feeling of solitude I get when looking at an empty expanse of prairie or woods. The solitude never feels lonely to me. And I suspect you may be the same way.
I like having sun and wind, trees and bushes, mountains and rivers for companions. In a year that has been trying for all of us, in various and numerous ways, I'm so very thankful that I live in this place.
Whether I'm looking on it from the coziness of my warm house or out in it, I love being here. The swish of dry grasses ruffled by the wind, or the rustle of leaves, the smell of sagebrush when it brushes against my jeans, and so many other gifts of nature, are all balm for a weary soul.
