Maybe it’s words like belief or faith that frighten people. There seems to be an implication of certainty that can be elusive, or even exclusive. (I say that as someone who is certain of all that I don’t know.) Maybe that’s why I am drawn to the front page quote of my sketchbook — “La vie est semée de c’est miracles que peuvent toujours espérer les qui aiment.” (Life is full of miracles that people who love can always hope for.) I find myself here, among the people who love, daily. And didn’t I learn it so many years ago in my grandfather’s shadow?

Of course I didn’t have the words for it then. Neither English, nor French. I didn’t question the miracles that had to occur each year just to get from seed to harvest. The luck, the timing, the weather, the work, the radio reports on grandma’s noontime transistor, all went unnoticed by me. What I felt was the love my grandpa had for his family. This was a truth I could understand, see first hand, as he rose from kitchen table to field. Love — that’s where all the hope was, I thought, all the miracles.

When I saw the quote in my empty sketchbook, it became so easy for me to begin. I didn’t have to create the answers, only the love. This I knew how to do. I painted my first bird, warmed and secure in my grandfather’s shadow. Each little miracle free to fly to wherever needed. 

The answer is still, and again, love.