The Joy of Water

"No water, no life. No blue, no green."

- Sylvia Earle, American marine biologist, oceanographer, explorer, author, and lecturer

As a watercolorist, I do love water. I like the way it looks, it flows, and it mixes with pigment. I need water to make my art. I live in a location of high desert and am anxious when we don't get enough water. So, I have been anxious the last two years about the lack of water we have here and across the west.

Unexpectedly, we have received a lot of water this spring. Beginning in May, a month in which we can have very high temperatures, we have been fortunate enough to get water in the form of snow - our greatest accumulation here all winter - and in an abundance of rain. And the rain has not always come with scary thunderstorms or high winds either. We've had many days of gentle, constant, straight down rain.

As a result, we've had lots of green. And all the colors that come with it in large numbers of wildflowers. Pinks, yellows, blues, purples in all sizes and shapes. Mother nature in all her glory. Water bringing life all around us.

In the midst of all this life, I've felt the blue in a different way, and experienced the water in the form of tears. My sweet Luna, my heart dog, crossed over this month. In the midst of the flow of lifegiving water, her life was ebbing. Luna, being a lab, loved the water, and would find a pool of it and lie down in it on hot days. And if it was slightly muddy, all the better. I like to think she's turning my tears into all this rain to give me colorful wildflowers and lots of green to cheer me.

Thank you, Luna, for your gift of life.