SEASON'S PAINTINGS 

BY JUDITH MILLER

                 [For a larger JPEG version click on title of any painting.]

Is time linear?  Circular?  I have clues, no answers.  I do know that my experiences and memories refuse to stay put.  The past jumbles the present.  

 In the high desert of Eastern Oregon, where I grew up,  paying attention was crucial. It could save crops and herds, the ranch, and life itself.  Nature's challenges are less crucial in the California Bay Area.  The subtle seasonal changes of sound, sight, smells, tastes and textures gradually melt into one another.

I love the smell of the Eucalyptus. I stay away from their brittle limbs in the fall when the winds blow.  I carry a seed in my pocket, a talisman when the city presses too close.  I face the winter bravely knowing that my bulbs are planted and that the roof is not going to leak.   El Niño is coming this winter (1997-98) .  Trouble for people who live on hillsides and, for me,  only the fear of wet and crowded freeways. 

Winter's temperatures in Eastern Oregon fell to 32 below.  Sometimes colder.  I never remember a day when it was too cold to go outside.  Full wagon loads of hay went out every morning to feed the cattle.  My dad's ears were warmed by my mothers nylon stockings under his hat.  Two fingers of his gloves flopped in the wind-no fingers there.  Mom's wash was frozen stiff.   My clothes and I were black from the tire fire at the skating pond. In California I go to Yosemite to see the snow, if I'm lucky.  Snow here is not the end of a cycle but entertainment or a mystical  experience.

On the ranch yearning began before the spring.  The Chinook Wind melted the snow and ice, warmed the air, and created movement.  There was a desire to see a completion:  leaves on the trees, shoots popping up, calves and kittens born, the end of classes.

Exactly when does spring come in California?    I label it spring in my mind when the Daffodils bloom, when I can eat on the patio, when I change my slightly warmer clothes for slightly cooler ones.  We know summer is here because the fog rolls in every night and we joke about the freezing tourists when we go into San Francisco.  Every few days the fog stays out in the ocean and the temperature goes up to 85, maybe 90, or even to extremes of 100 a couple of times.  I know the exact temperature because I've brought a family tradition to my home.  The thermometer proves what we already know.

In the high desert the relentless summer hangs on hot day after hot day.  A hot sun and dry wind depletes the reserves of water and patience. The best escapes are the river, the irrigation ditch, or a thunderstorm.  The river is ice cold, the irrigation ditch has leeches, and the thunderstorms bring fires and sooty crops.  But for me, heaven was swimming in an irrigation ditch, shoulder to fin  with the carp, with the rain pouring down and the sky crackling.

Even yet part of the pleasure of outside is to feel the heat or cold, to run my hand over rough bark, or to smell the wet earth.  Like a cat's cradle, the selves of my life crisscross, rub past each, get entangled, and both enrich and impoverish the day. 

©1994-2006    All Rights Reserved    Art and Text by Judith Miller