Microlife

The best things always happen by accident. I've been wandering the hills since 5:00 a.m., I've given up on sunrise, but I won't allow myself leave without painting.

l am going back after all. The morning's quick sketching turned into a noon trip, and I feel completely torn up. Yesterday's rain is in the air, the trees are sprinkled with greenish scales of lichen, as if they were breathing, it seems to me. I can't even see the beauty of it at first, just taking pictures, but keep walking. Elsewhere, I look at the pictures with detachment. I am coming back. Not to the cottage, but to my lichens. And I'm painting.

The next day, I'm ready to finish it. Yesterday I was very tired and not really flowing. I only hope in one thing, that it rained last night again. Well, it din't. The lichen is sleeping. It doesn't scream like it did yesterday in bright green fluffs. But I'm not going to give up that easily. I take my bottle of water and splash it all over the reddish trunk. During painting, I watch the water trickle down and flow into the cracks, where life is awakening again and yesterday's experiences is returning back to me.