Commanding Rainbows To Stay

 By Maryanna Gabriel 

"You will be surely amazed, when once you
begin to feel what colour means. To find how many
qualities which appear to result from peculiar method
and material do indeed only depend on loveliness of execution;
how divine the law of nature is which is so connected to the 

immortality of beauty with patience of industry, that by precision
of rightness of laborious art, you may at last literally
command the rainbow to stay, and forbid the sun to set."
- John Ruskin Laws of Friesole

I have to admit packing up my studio is hard. I wish I had painted more. Played more with colour. Been braver. As it is, I think of Frida Kahlo while my back acts up. It is a year after my fall and I am frustrated not to be further along with my healing. Frida was bold. She took her struggles and pinned it to the canvas with a series of nails alternated with flowers, monkeys, eyebrows, and Diego. I have already spilled brushes and pencils as if avoiding the box that is their destination. We always think there is more time. And then there isn't. I keep promising myself new and interesting places to create beauty await. I just wish I could teleport a part of the studio and this amazing property so I too could command rainbows. 

Sold

 By Maryanna Gabriel

"No artist recognizes any standard of beauty

but that which is suggested by his own temperament. 

The artist seeks to realize in a certain material, 

his immaterial idea of beauty,
and thus to transform an idea into an ideal. 

That is the way an artist makes things. 

That is why an artist makes things."

- Oscar Wilde 1891

I have sold my house; it has been a bit rough. Of course everything looks absolutely beautiful now that I know I am leaving. Every garden corner created, every dear tree leaning companionably towards the house. This quote by Oscar Wilde seemed to fit. So much has been created here. My children growing, career, businesses, community and contributions to it, paintings, my time at Emily Carr, my  recent master's degree and the writing that went into my book now to be published, the visitors from afar who have healed in the garden where I am convinced paradise exists. It is a most healing place where I have grown so much. 

I must confess that the recent gathering of long time friends in front of my studio brought tears to my eyes. We shared tea, as I served heart-shaped sandwiches with garlicked cream cheese, and tiny squares with cucumber slices the size of pennies. We talked of things past and future, and then trundled about in our summer dresses inspecting this nook and that, conversing happily amongst ourselves.

As we sat sipping from old bone china, a Barred Owl landed in a big old cedar tree, as though it was perfectly normal for a nocturnal creature to show up above a circle of women who have known each other almost three decades, for all the world like this is normal owl behaviour.

We were graced and we knew it.  

Firsts as I Drive East

Worth the geological peril. 

 
By Maryanna Gabriel

Driving to Alberta was different this time. I chose an alternate route. Snow had fallen on my more favoured scenic route, #3, and besides which my chosen hotel in Nelson has not survived the Covid shutdown. Then there was the Merit highway - closed due to floods. So I drove the #1, the Trans Canada.

The first thing I noticed was that the Fraser River was dangerously swollen, at one point right to the highway barrier, and trees in leaf were swamped in the fast-moving water. Then there were the issues of the rock cliffs with wire cages holding them together - not exactly reassuring. Geology no longer feels stable as this was the highway that was swept away by floods last November. 

As I approached the interior plateau town of Lytton, I remembered the fire from last summer that was so painfu for the town. I could see the burning was extensive throughout the pine-scorched landscape. Every town  between Vancouver and Calgary has received funds for roadwork and it was hard to be patient. But I was smart. School was not yet out and I zipped the 600 miles fairly gracefully with one night in a hotel. (The days of driving in one go are long gone. Too hard on the body.) Strangely, there was not a cherry in sight so I had to come to my family empty handed. Where have all the cherries
gone? Every fruit stand was closed. 

It was worth the geological peril to touch base with my family. Traveling right now is so chaotic; everybody seems to be moving around at once. Coming home was much easier as it was a Sunday - no roadwork and not much traffic. I was fascinated by a train snaking its way through the canyon with a striking design on the side. It was then I realized it was the famous Rocky Mountaineer, a luxury ride from Vancouver through to the Rockies. 

Rocky Mountaineer

I started talking to my phone, another first as I needed help with distances and weather forecasts. And feeling a little bored I asked questions like did Siri like me?

"I am your assistant and your friend," Siri replied.

Okay. A new friend. We got along great, especially when I could not remember how to get through Vancouver, Siri all of a sudden decided to give me directions which I badly needed.  

Siri had also been helpful in my capacity as a grandmother in Calgary, I had the phone with me as I put my grandsons to bed, their parents being out for an anniversary dinner. All of a sudden Siri announced, "I don't have any apps for that." What? We were all a little startled by this random pronouncement. I asked Siri to read my grandsons a bedtime story. So Siri did. It wasn't too bad. All firsts. 

Then returning on a spanking new ferry, I rode the Salish Eagle. Our old, Queen of Nanaimo has been shipped off to Fiji. Another first. I feel so much more cosmopolitan, now. Gotta get off Salt Spring Island more often. But it was good to come home to all the green.