Vigil: continuity and connectedness

Vigil

Throughout my life I have looked for the continuity of those happy accidents that serve to remind us that each of us really are all deeply connected in a real, tangible, way.

When I was 9 my family moved from Philadelphia to Buenos Aires, leaving all of my friends at that age was hard, as was jumping into a completely foreign place, language and culture, it was something that I struggled to make sense of. However, even there I discovered those marks of continuity. At my international school I met a girl in my class who's father's sister was the college roommate of my parent's best friends. Seems like a remote connection, but those friends of my parents had a daughter who had been my best friend since we were 4, and the girl that I met in my class had played with my best friend on multiple occasions. Finding this out really blew my little mind, and was a source of comfort to me for while, knowing that even so far away there was someone who had played with my old friend made me feel more immediately connected to my new friend. (Many years later I ran into this friend that I made in my class in Argentina, on a street in Washington DC with my baby son, and then even later I served as her doula via email as she waited through the last hard days of her overdue pregnancy, but that is another story)

So, since then I have loved finding these connections, and once I began to look for them I have found them everywhere. Even, within our recent move from NYC to Charleston which felt at first like such a break from everything that we knew, there have been so many of those connections with many of our new friends here.

This has got me thinking about another connection that I have been struggling to make sense of and that connection involves my painting Vigil, whose picture sits at the beginning of this post. The Realtors who worked with us to sell our house in Brooklyn were old friends of ours, I had known them for about 12 years, most of my time in NYC. They understood how much effort and really how much of ourselves we had put into our home through the renovation that we had done and they found wonderful buyers for our home who really appreciated all of the details of that renovation. I can not tell you how much it meant to us to have people taking over our home who really liked everything that we had done in our renovation, which really was a labor of love, you can read my posts about it here. These buyers also fell in love with our art work, which was hanging all over our home when they saw it. They had wanted to buy some of the pieces that we had up, but those pieces that we have hanging in our home are all pieces that we never want to part with. So, our Realtor friends ended up buying my painting Vigil for the buyers as a surprise "moving in" gift, at the big show that we had right before we left.

They told me that that they gave it to the buyers shortly after they moved in, and that they loved it. I was told that they hung it in the kitchen. Knowing that one of my paintings is there in our old home was really hard for me at first, since leaving that space was so difficult. We were so connected to that home, I birthed and raised my babies there. They took their first steps in that kitchen. We renovated that space top to bottom and we know every detail, every fixture, every nail hole. But, as I digested it over these past months I have come to find comfort in the continuity of my painting being there, a piece of me is still in that home. The title of the painting now seems so appropriate and almost prophetic.

Though we have left, it is keeping the Vigil, holding the space for that piece of ourselves that we left behind there.

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. ~Anatole France

The Ending and The Beginning

 Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning and under every deep a lower deep opens.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

My Brooklyn

A party to remember

Frank and I had our big art/goodbye party at our studio space on Saturday night. We still feel overwhelmed by the outpouring of support, all the friends who came out to join us in celebrating our years in NYC and our next adventure, as well as all of the people who bought our work that night. We sold so many paintings, and just knowing that they have all gone to the homes of people who are close to our hearts brings a huge feeling of peace and joy to both of us!

In the moments of calm after everything was hung up on the walls but before any guests arrived, Frank and I took a video to share with you here. Unfortunately technical difficulties are interfering in my fun of sharing it with you and I'm having trouble getting it loaded onto my blog. Hopefully I can sort that out soon!

Frank made his famous Antipasto platter to share with our friends, a part of his Italian family heritage!

Along with originals I also sold prints, wood mounted prints and cards,

My dear friend Sophia, from back in college days, was there to wrap up all of the sold art work and to handle all of the money, such a relief to have friends take care of that for us so that we could be free to talk with everyone!

Deep thanks to all of our dear ones who helped us that night, and to all who came. As the days get closer to our move (10 days to go), I am having trouble expressing everything that I am feeling with words. 

It was a night the we will long remember, the conversations, the goodbyes, the reminiscing, we are storing all of it up in our hearts!

xo

Our perfect day

Last Friday Carys and I had a day that was as close to perfect as possible, what a glorious time we had! We were up early after enjoying watching the royal wedding live, I think I was even on a bit of a "royal wedding high", it was such a beautiful event! We headed out to meet my cousin and her daughter at a pretty park in a very old part of Brooklyn called Cobble Hill,

The sun was shining brilliantly and it seemed as if everything was in bloom! After a tasty lunch at a cute cafe Carys and I began a long three mile walk back home through Brooklyn, it was the perfect day for a long walk, with many people out enjoying the spring weather, along quaint old Brooklyn streets full of history,

We walked down mostly tree covered, brownstone building lined sidewalks, with pretty iron work and blossoms at our feet,

Crossing some broad avenues,

Until we came to one of my favorite spots, tucked away right off of the grandeur of Grand Army Plaza with its impressive arch and statues,

There is this group of Cherry Trees that I have visited over the years and it was in riotous perfect full bloom,

Underneath the trees we enjoyed a fairyland,

Soft pink blossoms were everywhere, enough on the ground to gather bouquets to dance around with, Carys was in heaven!

 After having our fill of frolicking for a while under the trees, we walked into the park, through an old tunnel that leads out into the Great Meadow of Prospect Park,

At the end of the tunnel there was a man playing a saxophone,

Those rich sounds filled the air and mingled with the sound of a ukulele, that was being played by a man leaning against a tree further down the path. He was playing the IZ version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, one of my all time favorite songs that sings to my soul,

We wandered out into the meadow and layed down, there were kids playing games, off in the distance we saw some people we know, there were kites flying, and the sun felt so good. The beauty of it all filled us up and spilled over,

 Oh Brooklyn, my Brooklyn, when you are beautiful you just knock me over.

*The perfect day ended with a glass of wine and a surprise dinner of salmon that Frank had ready when we arrived home, which of course made it extra perfect.