Sunset, Thursday, 24 December 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Painted at Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

On the way, finally, to cut a tree – way way too big for any normal living room, as I’m sure you would have observed in an instant –

(we are now improvising alternative arrangements for decorating our living room) – anyway, on this arduous one-mile fool’s errand (my fool’s errands are always arduous, it seems to be my style) – I took a break.

(The tree was found in a field doomed to be cleared and developed, a situation for another time, perhaps.)

I fell straight back in the snow, to look up at what seemed an endless polar blue. (A blue that paled considerably by sunset.) The considerable strains of our snowstorm-blocked preparations eased. What I saw was a fantastic blue that kept changing depths, behind the clean, slightly shaggy yet almost polished-looking pale brown top branches of big white oaks. For that moment, sky and trees were a Christmas card I gave myself.