You and I

"You and I" by Russell Maier - 1999.  Oil pastel, Digital Composite.

A decade ago I painted this picture.  

Way back then, Love and Fate were on my mind.  This was the meditative creation that ensued.  

This week the painting has come to haunt me.  The same themes have been swirling through my life as I move on from Wales to Europe and my journey.  I have dug through my archives and found the painting.  Alas the resolution is not very good-- let me paint it again with words...

As the Earth spins around the sun, far below a river curls through the land.  On it's banks mighty oaks stand nourished by the golden rays that flood through the cloudless sky.    In the swirling river, leaves have fallen and have been whisked away.   Ordained by a trillion variables, the leaves follow their course.   The only certainty in their swirling route is the ever changing onwardness.  

Yet, like dancers, two leaves come together in the current.  

One attracts the other. 

 Together they swirl about each other in the most intricate ballad-- close, then far, touching, then apart.

   At one point they seem hopelessly distant, then suddenly their currents bring them rushing together again.  Their dance together seems an eternity-- a blessing of fate, yet as fragile and  fleeting as the clouds that begin to move across the sky.

Alas, the same currents that brought them together also wrests them apart.

Around them other leaves dance.  The sun beams.  The river flows.  The currents cascade.   Clouds streak across the sky.  The earth spins and hurtles onwards in it's own cosmic dance.  

Whether its a few days, a few months or fifty years, Love seems destined to mean coming together and parting.   For every begining there is an ending.  For every moment of happiness there must also be sadness.    

One leaf taps out a feeble blog on his iPod as he tries to make sense of it all.