From a painting not done on this trip, but it fits here. Click it for larger view.
Here in Oregon we’ve had a fairly simple routine. We rise in the still-gray mornings for time with our own minds. Then Anne is upstairs for art, me down, at computer, joining her afternoons. At some point each day we go off for a walk. Often a light rain is falling, but we only use the umbrella sparingly, not wanting to look too much like foreigners.
We find ourselves enjoying the watering of our minds as much as we enjoy the drizzle outside. This year as last, we’ve listened to a 36-lecture overview of The Italian Renaissance as background while doing art. In the evenings it’s Downton Abbey for entertainment (last year, it was Foyles War for the second time).
We have our books. At page 120, I’m a tenth of the way into The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Instructive, really, of how things can go, and did.
Anne finished A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller, an enjoyable book she also read from to me in the car. She’s now into Caleb’s Crossing, a novel.
I’m also dipping out of What if Jesus Had Never Been Born? with so much of how and why this culture developed so different than others.
Morning and Evening is a book of Charles Spurgeon meditations I found on my mother’s bookshelf. I’m reading it for her sake, and mine.
There’s also a pithy little book found on a give-away shelf called New Creation Realities, a pulsating massage shower of reminders of who we are, or can be.
Then there’s the Bible itself, the Gospel of Mark, Psalms, or wherever; Anne is reading through the New Testament.
If our friend Adolf Hitler, who was a great reader in his earlier days, had meditated more along these lines it would have saved the world a good deal of trouble.
But most of our time has been spent at our crafts. Anne has been highly productive, doing finish work on scores of pieces started earlier. The walls here are fairly covered with her exquisite works.
I’ve been able to keep to a routine of a chapter drafted in the morning and a painting painted in the afternoon.
As a bonus, yesterday we approached a very fine gallery near here and they accepted ten pieces from each of us.*
Just a few more days and we’ll be on the road again, back to the land of sun, and the abundance of all things.
Either way, we’re grateful.
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*More about that in the next “e-gallery.”
Our Lives Together
Its About Life
10:59 pm
First, thank you for sharing your wonderful life together traveling and what you do in a day while traveling.. Lovely. I hope one day, Kevin and I could be in that position. Seems such a long way off but with God all things are possible!! I stay thankful and at peace in Him!! Loved hearing how Anne reads to you and what books you are reading! WOW! What a variety!!! No wonder you have so much to say when you write! You are gaining so much wisdom! Then, congratulations to both of you for getting so many pieces into a gallery up there! Fantastic!!!! Blessings to you both! Lisa
6:31 am
As always, I enjoy the description of your days and admire how you seem to enjoy life. It’s an encouragement that maybe one day things will calm down for me. Thank you!!
7:17 am
How wonderful.
7:46 am
Once again thanks Hyatt…..you’ve made me think a little more and find gratitude in my corner of the world… Love,love your writing. Always so meaningful to me.
Love the painting
8:16 am
Oh how we wish we could go visit that gallery and see your beautiful works of art there! So glad your time has been blessed :-)
10:36 am
Enjoy being in the present, Hyatt, and in that place of yielding and surrender. Great reads! I especially enjoy Donald Miller, one of my favorite contemporary writers. Pax in Christo.
10:39 am
I love hearing the specifics on how you spend your day, what you do to nurture your well being. It gives me a good example and inspiration of how I can spend the next stage of my life after the kids are gone. Something wonderful to look forward to. Congratulations for having your art work accepted by a new gallery. That’s always worth celebrating!
10:40 am
Thank you again! Safe travels, cousins!
1:12 pm
Thanks for the testimonials on the books you are reading. I’ve been reading Don Miller’s, Blue Like Jazz. Jo and I are driving to San Jose, CA this week. 10 hours to Langley to visit our granddaughter in Trinity Western, then two 8 hour trips to San Jose for a two week stay, then back again. We’re planning to read Miller’s quotes and talk about them.
7:09 am
Wonderful, wonderful Hyatt!! Thank you for sharing this!!