Union

Union

Today is a rather rainy, gloomy day here in Brooklyn. The sort of day that makes me pensive and even a bit sad. Today though, I do have reason to be sad, we just found out that our best friends here will be leaving New York in July, moving out to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I am not only really close with the Mom of this family but also the three girls are Jasper and Carys's best friends, and our next door neighbors. So this is hitting our family hard. We have not talked about it too much with our kids yet, since they don't have a developed sense of time I don't want to make them upset far in advance of the move, but I find that for myself I am processing it slowing. Imagining each instance in which I am so used to their presence and then imagining their absence.
Having moved many times throughout my life I have left friends, and moved to different places where I made new ones. Living in New York has been different, I have lived here for so many years that I have watched so many people move in and out of this city and it has never gotten easier. It is a very transient place, people come for a while and leave, and this has been one of the hardest things about living in New York for me.
This new painting is about the Union of one soul with another. Not necessarily in the romantic sense, although that is what I was thinking about when I made it. As I was looking at it today I was thinking about how it illustrates for me the delight in another person, that soul connection that you have with a friend which feels so good. I can imagine few things better than those moments where I feel fully heard, acknowledged and seen by a good friend.
We meet friends like that throughout our lives, and even though I know that this is true, it is hard to let them go on with their journey when it takes them far away.