Early Morning on the Lake

(This photo is not from this morning, but is as close as I have on file.)

I sit at the large windows overlooking the lake and marvel at the harmony of the water, land and sky: it is early morning and the water is still, a glassy reflection of the ridge of firs and maples on the opposite shore.  I ponder how I might capture the ever-changing color of the water, so different each day, and I have made a few quick studies on other days: the lake in fog, winter lake, nocturne on the lake.  Today the water is deep in value, cool in temperature, a steely green with hints of blue, Hookers green, but more neutral and transparent, and where it meets the brighter reflection of the overcast sky, the ripples cause the light to shimmer, a scintillation where the two colors meet, a dancing blend.  The ridge of trees and homes is dark and moody, and the peach and cream sky above it is almost superfluous, and yet when the eyes take it all in, the heart flutters and the exquisite beauty of the scene is almost unbearable, made more unbearable by the certainty that I will never be able to find a mixture of paints that will come close to sharing this moment with others, or fix it in Time, craft a hold on it.  No, this moment is as ephemeral as the V-wake of the wood duck as he paddles in circles, lasting only the moment itself and then it is gone, taken back into the random dance on the water surface.  The light changes even as I watch it; I imagine myself madly mixing piles of paint, chasing the elusive, and I am helpless to do anything about it.  The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

I resign myself to the moment, to being a witness to the day, to being in it and yet apart from it, riding the current of the gray/green mood of early morning spring.  A bald eagle swoops low, skims the surface of the water, loops back lazily to swoop again in the same place and then retreats to a shoreline tree to eat his catch.  Another eagle glides down from overhead, joins his or her mate as they wing back and forth across my view.  A fawn tenderly one-steps its way up from the brush on the hillside, finds the feed we leave beneath the cedar tree and munches quietly, its little tongue darting around the lips, the jaw working side to side.  Down in the dark cove below, the Canada geese splash in short bursts as they chase each other, honking and fussing.  Life is so abundant and so present, I am filled with a thrill that becomes almost a nausea; it is overwhelming, my eyes tear up, the music in my earbuds, made by musicians far away in another time still somehow perfectly fits this moment, too, and Time slows down, crowds out the rest of the day: I realize that this is all I need, to be here now, living this moment which I know will not last, as it will be slowly abraded by the rising sun, the changing of the light - even now there are hints of cerulean working their way into the patterns on the water.

My desire to try to paint this scene seems puny in the presence of such beauty, and I am embarrassed to think I would dare to assume that any effort on my part could ever replicate even a portion of this.  But isn’t the point of painting to translate the emotional reaction to an event or to a place, frame it in two dimensions, share it with the world?  I need to reassess the purpose and the scope of my artistic intentions, find something less daunting, some motif more simple and direct.  This here outside my window, this I can witness on my own, my own private romance with the Light, and that must certainly be enough.