I was probably 5 years old when I drew this picture. There is no telling what was going on in my mind then but what’s strange about it is that it predicted some aspects of my life with a naive yet uncanny accuracy.
There are three figures in the foreground: my father, my mother and I. My Dad is walking in one direction on a path that is different than my mother’s and mine. My mother is standing behind me as I run along the road that leads to a steep incline and then, beyond the crest of the hill, to a bride approaching a groom. His head is the only one that has been erased and drawn twice, suggesting a second marriage(?) His foot is at the entrance to a garden, with a tree, grass and flowers; a paradise of sorts that is self contained and isolated from everything else. A solitary blue bird flies overhead, the sun shines brightly in a blue sky and, in the background, stands a mountain colored in black.
My Dad’s path originated in the shadow cast by the house and ends abruptly. He died suddenly at the age of 59, and my mother married a second time several years later. I also married twice. Our time without my father far outlasted our time with him. In the meantime, I worked several different jobs, lived in various places, had medical issues, perhaps the many paths, some that disappear over the hill and some more tortuous than others.
And the black mountain? It took me quite a while to understand its significance because it is rendered, oddly enough, without a hint of danger or menace. The only interpretation that makes sense to me is almost too simple. For many years my mother traveled extensively around the world and to her home country but when she reached her 80’s, she reduced her travels to summers in… Black Mountain, NC.