Waiting for the crisis to pass, our thoughts go out to friends and loved-ones who also shelter in place. Old friends pass away, people we loved and admired. Immobilized for the time being, we can revisit destinations, near and far. join me in celebrating the joys of Quaranteam travel, the hope that these diversions might inspire us to value things we had taken for granted, to draw strength, wisdom and compassion from deeper engagements with nature.
CATSKILL ESCARPMENT FROM OLANA.August 31, 2016. Watercolor and pen on Moleskine watercolor sketchbook. 3.5 x 10 inches. 2016
“Nature has been very lavish here in the gift of her beauty- I am sure you would enjoy the noble scenes which our windows command”
Frederic Edwin Church to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1880
Sitting on the edge of the south porch at Olana—the home of Frederic Edwin Church. The day is warm, threatening rain. Wednesday. We had just driven up from the city to deliver Kathie to a meeting. The previous week we had been in London, Kew and Greenwich. Like the Royal Observatory, Olana crowns a hill that spills steeply down a wide, grassy slope.
The difference here is that I am not looking across the Thames at the Isle of Dogs, with the new Docklands rising up behind it to the north. Dark clouds to the west seem to promise approaching thunder and rain. Visitors on a guided tour of the house peer over my shoulder. No one pauses to give me advice, or ask me what I’m doing. I am just part of the scenery. A young couple walks to the edge of the hilltop. They take a selfie. A drop of rain lands on the back of my hand.
(A preview of SKETCHBOOK TRAVELER by James L. McElhinney (c) 2020. Schiffer Publishing).
Copyright James Lancel McElhinney (c) 2020 Texts and images may be reproduced (with proper citation) by permission of the author. To enquire, send a request to editions@needlewatcher.com