The Infinitesimal Retarder of Dreams

The More Things Change 2019 Oil on canvas, 37 x 51"

Oh I want COVID to go away, just do the agony throe and drop dead.
This is my favorite painting from my Empty Nest series back in 2019, here and here.

This week, month and half year, my wife and I go through Empty Nest all over again. Our youngest daughter is off to Spain for a semester of wonder and discovery, and we repeat our shaky ride on the emotional roller coaster. Ah, to be human! Were there ever pleasures to offset pains? Or was our emotional complex always just a switch on the neuro-electrical box called “pain”? On is ouch, and off being in a state of “absence of “ouch”.

This painting was finished 3 months before the first lockdown. It’s our daughter’s little college town we visited when the pains of Empty Nest were transforming into a prolonged “absence of ouch” that we interpreted as hope and desire for the new as we learn how to get old.

Actually, quite a beautiful memory, and worth repetition in reality as often as possible unto the big sleep.

But damn this virus!
Hot damn to Hell this infinitesimal retarder of dreams!