By Carrie Jacobson

Early Spring
oil on canvas, 10×10

By Carrie Jacobson

One of the best things of this life as a painter is having the time, and living in the space, to be aware of the minutiae of the natural world, and the turning of the seasons.

Weeks and weeks ago, I saw the tips of the trees begin to redden. I’ve watched the buds shift to yellow green, and then to flowers and, in a second, it seemed, burst into leaves. I drive the back roads, slowly enough that I can notice the wisteria growing wild where, perhaps, a house once stood. Slowly enough that I can stop to help a turtle cross.

The daffodils are mostly passed here, except for in the shadows, but everywhere,  dogwood is blooming, pink and white, fragile and brilliant deep in the shady woods, and dancing at the edges, too. Azaleas – ludicrously loud! Ridiculously bright! – announce themselves all over town. Irises are blooming, elegant and spiky, and the lawn is already out of control.

Working for decades inside, I hadn’t known I’d lost touch. Now, I know I had.

The Red Umbrella

By Carrie Jacobson

On Tuesday, here in Virginia, parents and alarm clocks woke kids up. They rose in a morning that was strangely early, strangely dark. They dressed in clothes that smelled new and felt stiff.

They shouldered backpacks filled with pens that all work, pencils with sharp points, unblemished erasers. Notebooks held oceans of possibility, untouched so far by thought or striving or error. There were special lunches, carefully packed in unstained lunchboxes, in which nothing has spilled or ripened over a weekend.

On the bus and in the schoolyard, they saw kids they haven’t seen for months, and they smiled and laughed and screamed, took up joyful friendships and strained ones, too, and surely found that some of each had changed, over the long lapsed months of summer.

I remember the smell of unused classrooms, open for the first time, in the autumn heat. The creak of floorboards and desk lids, the unaccustomed noises that come from lots of people being inside together. I remember the heat of those September classrooms, the sound of the bell and the PA system, and the feeling of my summer-hardened feet, inside shoes for the first time since June.

I remember the excitement of it all, and how I loved it. I spent the summers happily at the beach, but I was a learner, and school was my place. I loved the classes, the friends, the new clothes. I loved bag lunches and the bus and assemblies and recess and the teachers. I loved learning, and trying, and achieving.

And every year, when school opens, a little part of me wishes I were there again.

Hay Bales

By Carrie Jacobson

When we left the mid-Hudson Valley six years ago, it was not a happy departure. My mother had died, my boss Mike Levine had died, my job at the Times Herald-Record had been eliminated, and we lived in a house where flooding endangered our lives.

I hadn’t realized, until today, that my memories and thoughts of the mid-Hudson were tinged and darkened by these experiences.

On the drive from Saugerties to Middletown, I found myself awed, at nearly every curve, by the incredible beauty and glory of the area. This must be the greenest time of the year, and the cool morning and soft light highlighted the depth and variety of the colors.

The road wound beside clear streams, past fields thick with corn, by farms with beautiful buildings showing the care of families over decades, over centuries. And behind it all, the mountains rose, tall and blue and strong.

I’d forgotten what a place the mid-Hudson Valley is, what beauty it holds, what history it whispers, what promises it makes. Today, I remembered it all.

Ganado, Arizona

By Carrie Jacobson

I loved the West. I loved the huge sky, the open plains, the amazing rock formations. I loved the mountains, the sagebrush, the cacti, the amazing dawns and dusks. I loved the tiny little towns, the big exotic cities, the adobe houses and mammoth ranches.

I loved how sunny and warm it was, how wild, how unpredictable. One moment I would be driving up a hilly little road, and the next moment, I’d be at 9,000 feet, looking out at mountaintops and seeing snow trapped in the shady hollows of the woods.

I was born out there, in Arizona, very close to the landscape I’ve painted here. I loved seeing the place where I was born, even if I don’t remember it much.

This was a great trip, and I loved nearly every minute of it. The best part was also the most surprising part, painting with my dad, outdoors, twice. How fantastic and rich to find something new that we share, him at 84 and me at 56.

And now, I am home, and happy to be home. Happy to have seen the world and come back to the quiet and the calm of the Eastern Shore.

As beautiful as were all the places I saw during this trip, there was no place… well, no place like home.

To see more paintings from my trip, click here to check out my blog, The Accidental Artist.