Earth Days

Earth Day came early for me this year. I spent April 9 to 14 in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia at my sister Jane's place, which is tucked into a hollow at the end of a dirt road. The tall oaks, maples and sycamores were still bare, but the grass had greened up--it's been a wet spring--and clumps of bright yellow daffodils populated the hillsides.

The ornamental plum by the drive was covered in pale pink flowers and the forsythia had turned yellow, providing surreal bursts of color against the gray forest backdrop.

Hillsides are about all they have there abouts; the only truly flat spots are the ones my brother-in-law George has created over the years with a front-end loader. To see the Milky Way at night you pretty much have to look up, although the terrain and trees do offer a slight opening to the west and the sometimes spectacular orange-pink-gold sunsets.

While I was there, George tilled the lower garden and I planted a 20 foot row of cilantro and half a row of parsley from seeds he saved from last year. I also planted the onion sets and potatoes he picked up in town. The earth, dark and fine textured, smelled sweet beneath my hands.

But I hadn't flown to Virginia simply to plant potatoes, although that would have been a good enough reason. My sister had a show of 21 watercolors hanging in a gallery in Fairfax and I went to hear her give a talk about her work. Jane studied color theory with Neil Welliver, who was a student of Josef Albers, and she had slides of their work along with other color field painters who influenced her work. She also talked about Chinese landscape painting, which helped me better appreciate where the contemplative dimension of her work comes from.

When I tell people my sister does landscape paintings I'm afraid they think of barns and covered bridges, but in actuality her paintings are beautiful and complex renderings of the Virginia Blue Ridge informed by her many years of living there in all seasons. I think they convey the felt sense of the place with exquisite grace.

I'm proud and very grateful that at the same time my book finally made its appearance, Jane had her largest --and best-- show to date. I feel as if we've finally had our say.