Heading Home?


I signed up to participate in The Sketchbook Project, a national art endeavor. I chose to sketch the topic: “you'd be home by now.” However, I wasn't sure which Home I was contemplating – my current Home in Florida or the Home of my past.
So when billions of people head south for the winter, I got in my van and drove 1,330.48 miles north in search of the Home I'd be at by now.
It was exhilarating to see the flat lands of the prairie with red barns, silver silos, Canadian geese and Deeres in the cornfields. I did feel that I had come home. AND the first few days were almost Floridian – unseasonabily warm with bright blue sunshiney skies.
I spent the first week or so meandering through the local conservation area, a 3,000 acre park comprised of former farmlands where my friend and I used to pick wild black raspberries every July. I would set up my easel overlooking the vast expanse of prairie, bogs, and kames or down by the creek. However, I spent the time just staring at the beauty of the lands and didn’t get much paint on the canvas.
Then the November weather did an about face – blowing winds brought dismal grey skies with snow flurries forecasted, and the land became a frozen tundra. I loved it! Made one want sit front of the fireplace and eat massive bowls of chili or drink hot chocolate.
It’s now December. Six inches of white fluffy snow have hit the ground, the temps are dipping below 20 degrees, not including the wind chill, and I still haven’t put paint on canvas yet. That’s because I either have my nose pressed to the window like a 4 year old watching snowflakes fall from the sky or making my umpteenth pot of chili. And I still haven’t figured out which “home I’d be at by now.”

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