Lessons From Slowing Down
Alas, I suppose it's officially the end of summer as we know it. It's been about a week since we've returned from our trip to Indiana to visit my husband’s lovely grandparents, Grandma Jean and Grandpa Glen. Evan (my hubs) had to stay back and work, but was able to fly up for the last weekend and help us on the 14 hour drive home🤦🏽♀️. Grandma and Grandpa are just such legends of faith, and I love getting to know them more each time we visit as well as having them pour into my children’s lives. How many kiddos get to meet and know their great grandparents!?
Although it’s “busy” when we visit…making sure we see all the cousins, entertaining the kids, etc,…it’s a different setting. It gets me out of my head, out of my regular routine, and more into the moment. Whenever we go to Grandma and Grandpa’s, we all just slow down a little bit because we know that that time with them is so precious and far and few in between. Every time I come home I think, I’m gonna be THAT present in my daily life! I’m gonna slow down for the moments that matter! …and sometimes that happens…and sometimes it doesn’t. It’s one of those things that is always developing, isn’t it?
My most recent piece is also about this idea. The inspiration for “Slowing Down” happened on a day when I had about 3 different jobs and errands to run. I knew I had to eat that day so I decided to be intentional with it. Instead of picking up lunch and eating on the go, I decided to drive down nearby street in town called the Pitt Street Bridge. I hid off the beaten path in a little area where I’d seen people fishing on previous trips, and watched this scenery. It’s in times like that with nature where the world takes its natural course of time for me, and my mind is able to go back to the rhythm it was originally created to experience.
Slowing down allowed me to notice details about this place that I’ve never noticed before even though I’ve been to this place many times. For example, I noticed a tiny little strip of land with a few trees in the distance full of wood storks. I saw skimmers come by in the water (that’s a kind of coastal bird that scoops its food up by flying right over the water, hence the name, skimmer). I saw hundreds of little fiddler crabs cleaning up the sand as they eat the detritus, algae, and bacteria off the sand particles. Just think, of hundreds of little litter crews making the earth a cleaner and healthier place! I even got to see the rarely spotted Marsh Wren, one of two birds that actually nest in the South Carolina marshes. (The other one is the Clapper Rail.) I actually heard it first and that enabled me to spot it. Sidenote: If you’re into learning bird calls, I use an app called Merlin Bird ID that has helped me to learn sounds of the birds here in the Lowcountry. So back to the painting…all those moments led me to paint this secluded little scene featuring the beautiful Great Blue Heron who happened to be on it’s lunch break as well.
This painting, "Lunch Break" is created with oil pastel with the heron being painted with oil paint. It is a 9x12 inch painting on black paper which gives a neat effect as it speckles through the background. As mentioned, it features the beautiful Great Blue Heron, an renowned oak tree of the Lowcountry, and the luscious cordgrass which is a feeder to many and protector of storm surges. This original painting has sold, but it is available as a print. My hope is that when you look at it, the world is able to slow down a bit for you too.