Enjoy what's enjoyable now

Catherine in the coat and hat

Inktober drawing 

Black marker on paper

5.5 x 8.5 inches
Barbara Muir © 2019
 

We are living in hard times.  This drawing from Inktober 2019
made me think about how lucky we were in a way then.  The pandemic

became public in March 2020, and since then life has been profoundly

changed, and not for the better. We lost so many people to COVID -- and

social life became precarious. But when I published this little drawing of

Catherine in 2019 we didn't know what was coming. 

        Here's what I wrote when I first published the piece.  I've been working on
        a painting for the better part of two months, and it is finished today.  When
        it gets approved by the collector, I will show it to you.  Meanwhile please
        enjoy this: 

        "When I was a little girl I adopted a family.
        Really they adopted me -- because I was told
        to go outside all the time, and would be hanging
        around the nearby streets with my dog. The long
        and the short of it is that a nice family let me
        come in and see the baby.  I fell in love with
        the baby, and the couple proceeded to have
        three more from the time I was seven when
        I met them, until I was thirteen when I moved away.

       I loved, loved, loved these babies, and before long
       I was helping change their diapers, playing with them,
       and I was allowed to take them for walks around the
       corner to my house and my mother.

       My mother was sad about changes in baby clothes,
       and snowsuits, and things that tried to make babies
       look older than they were.  She was an amazing sewer
       and sewed this beautiful coat and hat for one of the children,
       Catherine, in a deep rose corduroy (so it would be
       washable). The coat had pleats and so much material,
        but it was sweet, and Catherine's mother made sure to
        let me dress Catherine in the coat and hat if I was bringing
        her to see my Mother.

Have a loving your memories day."