JULY

Vacation month. Time to switch from what’s under my nose and distance myself from studio routine.

July in Missouri is not for a faint of heart, its usually the hottest, driest month of the year. My studio doesn't have its own air-conditioning and although it doesn't get very hot being adjacent to the rest of the house but still, by July I'm desperate for a break. Spring shows are done, and I intentionally leave most of summer commitment-free. This summer I did take on one mini show with Antler Gallery in Portland but I worked on the pieces on and off whole spring and they are ready to be packaged and sent.

So, vacation. An ocean lover, that's where I go to “lose myself and find my soul”. This is my first time in Jamaica and getting there is almost bigger adventure than being there. The place we heading to is on the other side of the island and roads are winding around mountains. Small houses dotting mountainside, half built or half destroyed, I can’t tell.

The sky opens up suddenly and we hit the wall of tropical downpour. We're at the bottom of the mountain driving up. The water is at the top, rushing down. Both sides of the road - and sometimes the middle - are now rivers with occasional goat wading through trying to get to higher ground. Chickens that were everywhere before, expertly avoiding car wheels, now all disappeared. I hope they found their way home and not been washed off all the way to the bottom into a screaming mess of wet feathers, beaks, and feet. I brush the vision away. We're here. We give our driver generous tip. Gasoline is eight dollars per gallon in Jamaica.

This is my kind of place, with birds everywhere. They steal food from our plates, they aware of my weakness. I watch small egret as he chokes on too big piece of fish, he bobs his head trying to get food to go down. Finally he sticks his beak into my water glass and gets long drink. I give him an eye roll. This is paradise.

I don’t think we notice beauty in real time, we can only appreciate it in retrospect. We can’t get through the day fast enough, so we can mourn it tomorrow. And the memory of it also changes, like an ocean receding. This is a blessing and a curse. I'm slowly learning how to mourn every passing moment as it is happening. I got a lot to learn. I wrapped ocean around my finger three times. I will not forget.