Paddles to Pears

28 Nov Paddles to Pears

Something about pears.

These pears started as paddles.

No, it’s OK.  I know they’re awful.  I worked and worked and used tubes of paint trying to get this somewhere.  It came from a picture that I’d taken that I liked a lot.

Man, I like that picture.  Those are old family paddles, two of them first used by my grandparents.  My grandpa courted my grandma by taking her out for canoe rides.  And when I say “took her out” I don’t mean my grandma would have sat in the front looking pretty.  She was tiny and feisty and would have kept up just fine paddling. There is a ‘B’ carved on the smaller of the two paddles, for my Grandma.  That makes me smile so much.

My dad wooed my mom on long evening walks around the city they were living in, holding hands.

Such gentle ways of getting to know one another.

After they married they found themselves out in the canoe too, probably holding those same paddles.

I have a memory from when I was young of being out in the canoe with my dad one summer evening.  We went farther from home than usual and when it got dark and I got sleepy he told me to lie down and let myself drift off, and I remember doing that, staring up at the stars and hearing the dip of the paddle.  I think having memories like that give me a peaceful little pocket inside.

This summer one of my boys went out canoeing in front a number of times, both on his own and with friends. An adventurer. Finally old enough that I can hold back on some of my (out loud) worrying and let him get on with it.

I love seeing the pictures he comes back with.  A good eye.  I’m almost used to seeing pictures taken from the tops of cliffs.  Brat.

So it was with some regret with I gave up on my stinky not-working-at-all painted version of paddles and let them go.  But in doing that I turned them sideways and transformed them into pears.  Sometimes I sit and think of drifting off in canoes.

Sometimes I’m just hungry.

This painting is up in Lalli Loves It, in West Vancouver.