Shell fragment, watercolor and gouache, JD 2023 Thanks for reading JD: ABCs ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. We all have these pieces of shell, tumbled in the surf until the sharp edges of their broken forms are smoothed into an illusion of wholeness, as if the irregular form were actually original. For some reason one small remnant catches the eye amid the seaweed and other rolled fragments scattered in the dried tidelines. Why this piece and not the one next to it of darker shell or a bit of twisted whelk further on? Because something in the arc of the upper edge mimics the sinew of a wing? The subtle colors just manage enough of a glow to suggest a living warmth associated with the vanished animal that operated the hinge connecting the two sides of this bivalve when it was living. Now, nothing but the bleached bit of hard shell made of calcium carbonate remains, delicately perfect even in its partial state.
An interesting thought, our arms outstretched, some years, a decade perhaps, before and after the year of our births. Even as I have aged, and have acquired a more clear view of ancestry and events, I have never thought of MY time in this way, never considered the time before as having any intimate connection to ME. Is that because I was the family’s first born, and you were the second? I see myself in relationship to time in a more isolated way..beginning, long middle and the inevitable somewhat terrifying end.
Beautiful...
An interesting thought, our arms outstretched, some years, a decade perhaps, before and after the year of our births. Even as I have aged, and have acquired a more clear view of ancestry and events, I have never thought of MY time in this way, never considered the time before as having any intimate connection to ME. Is that because I was the family’s first born, and you were the second? I see myself in relationship to time in a more isolated way..beginning, long middle and the inevitable somewhat terrifying end.