…. of the trivial and non-trivial.
Yesterday I posted about my problem with deciding on a title for recent watercolour pictures. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, I awoke with an inspiration for the one about the pool. I think I’ll entitle it A Light Touch. My wife had asked me earlier, in response to my questions about how to find a title, what it was actually about. I burbled on about the play of light on water and rock. Then it came to me, the touch of light is exactly what it is about. So there’s another problem solved.
The interesting and more profound sequel to this is that, over breakfast this morning, I told her of my idea, and had difficulty in speaking because I found the subject so intensely emotional. I believe that it is probably a function of age, that the suppression (or even control) of emotion becomes more difficult. It becomes more and more problematic to talk about matters that carry an emotional charge, without tears. We all know that age is associated with incontinence, but I’ve never before heard of emotional incontinence. I suppose it’s less embarrassing than the normal sort!
This morning also I finished the preparation of the canvas I had stretched. It actually looks pretty convincing. I’m prepared to use it for real, and I realised that it is just the right size for the next piece in my Italian series. So I sketched a composition, ready to go. I need to think about it a little more before starting the real thing, but I think it will work. When I was in Italy recently I was interested to discover that the wrought iron carrying rods used to transport barbed wire during the Great War are still in use, as fence posts. The idea awakens my long-term interest in time: here is the past in the present. It isn’t only a question of remembering the past, as time now behind us and gone. So often we actually live with the past, and our lives are constituted by it.