Redtree Times

Time Passage— Coming to Principle Gallery, June 2023

A healthy human environment is one in which we try to make sense of our limits, of the accidents that can always befall us and the passage of time which inexorably changes us.

-Rowan Williams, Choose Life: Christmas and Easter Sermons in Canterbury Cathedral

…the passage of time which inexorably changes us…

Yes, it does.

I was going to write a whole thing on time passing and aging. About how it took a while to get used to seeing and experiencing the changes that aging affected on my behaviors and appearance. The new wrinkles that came one day and decided to take up permanent residence on my face. The beard that was suddenly just white, no longer salt and pepper. Or the fact that now, like the line from the Leonard Cohen song, I ache in the places where I used to play. 

But I’m not going to write that particular post.

We can bitch and moan about it, but it happens. That’s the message today. That’s it.

And I’m okay with it. In fact, I feel kind of lucky to be able to continue aging in a world that often seems determined on seeing us not living. I have finally began to enjoy my age and appreciate what little wisdom that experience and time have gifted me. I better accept my limitations now as well as better celebrate my abilities.

In fact, this time passage feels like a gift.

Take that’s for what it is right now. Tomorrow might find me singing a completely different tune.

Here’s an old song that lines up with the painting at the top, Time Passage, which is headed to the  Principle Gallery for my June show, and the lines from Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury. The song is Time Passages from Al Stewart. Released in 1978, it was one of those ubiquitous songs that seemed to always be on whenever you flipped on the radio back then. It wasn’t a favorite of mine but listening to it today for the first time in quite a few years, I found it pretty pleasing.

Kind of soothing.

Maybe that’s a product of time passing…