West of Eden (Sunset, Tuesday, 30 November 2010)

William Van Doren, WEST OF EDEN (Sunset from Rosena, Albemarle County, Va.) Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

Sunset arrived in the rain, in the middle of a three-hour saga involving Laura’s car, a flat tire and a stuck wheel. Thanks to my brother Steve, a shade-tree mechanical genius, for telling me how to free the wheel. (Place my butt down in the pool of water adjacent to the car, put both heels together, kick the sides and the top of the wheel, and it’ll pop right off. After four kicks, I’ll be damned, it popped.)

This all happened at Rosena, a tiny place at the foot of the western side of the Southwest Mountains. During a lull in the action I wandered over to a Virginia historic marker on the roadside and read that Thomas Jefferson considered the Southwest Mountains “the Eden of the United States.” I wouldn’t argue, even while wet and stranded on the slope.