One thing I have learned in my first year studying art is that becoming an artist is so much more then training for a day job. Being an artist is not like being an accountant or a teacher, or so many other professions, where you go somewhere to work and do your job, then when your time is over you put aside that part of yourself, drive home to live your home life. Being an artist is truly being something all day, every day. It is more then painting in your free time. It is living life with a mindset of seeing as well as making things. It is opening up to everything that is beautiful, allowing it to fill you and responding to it with your own work. It means working through big questions and struggles, sometimes in thought, sometimes in writing, and sometimes through your work. It is seeing that life itself is beautiful and living it, appreciating every detail--the hard, the easy, the sweet, the bitter, the sweaty, the sore, the fun... 
   I thought about this last weekend, which we spent and my grandpa's home in Alabama. There are few places that hold so many sweet and rich memories for me the way that that house on the lake in Northern Alabama does. There are few places where I have been able to see so much beauty in the same the way that I have experienced the beauty there through the many years. It is the same scenes, the same landscape, the same view, but it is always different in some way--the way that the sun falls on the trees, the color and shape of the clouds, the waves sparkling out on the lake--it is always changing. There are so many experiences I could share from that place of retreat, but here I only want to share a taste of the richness of life that can be found...


  The car vibrates as I take out my pen to write. Miles of road stretch out before us, lined on either side by rolling mountains covered with trees, clothed in the rich green of summer. The van is quiet for once, each member of my family occupied with something. My heart is light and I can feel excitement building as we travel ever nearer to our destination.
   The familiar sight of my dad at the wheel with my mom sitting beside him is before me, and I find the familiarity calming. Fiona makes herself busy in the seat beside me, copying what I do with her notebook and pencil in hand. Her pages fill faster then mine. Behind me, all are either sleeping or reading. For once peace reigns. All the people I love, minus one, my older sister who had to stay behind to train for a new job, all in one place, together and happy. This is becoming too rare of an occurrence, and I treasure the beauty of this moment in my heart.
   Why am I excited? Because we are traveling to a place that holds sixteen years of memories, a place that has been there and remained the same as I have grown and changed through the years.
  
   It is late. The van's headlights shine, piercing the pure darkness of rural Alabama, illuminating a gravel road and casting deep shadows into the dense woods on either side. The car is a sleepy kind of silent, the only noise being the gentle sound of the engine, a whine that is only heard when driving the final stretch of road before coming to rest at the end of a long trip. We turn, pulling up the steep driveway on the hill on which Grandpa's house sits. The van doors are opened, letting in the warm, humid night air. I hear crickets and cicadas, together singing their summer lullaby into the stillness of the night. We pile out of the van sleepily and gather a few items, still not breaking the stillness. The screen door the the wide side porch creaks, and in the dim lighting I see a familiar form, arms open, welcoming. We have arrived.


   It is morning--early morning. It has to be early if I am going to make it to the lake before the fishermen, meaning my brothers. I gather a few things, my camera, notebook and Bible and make my way from the back room of the house. My feet know just where to land to avoid the boards that creak as I move to the door. The house is so still that even the smallest sound seems loud, making me cringe. I reach the door and step out onto the porch. Oh morning! The sun has not yet risen above the trees and the sky is still a lavender-gray color. Far down the hill, which slopes steeply away from the house, I can see a glimpse of the lake through the trees. It is glassy, with hardly a ripple marring its perfect surface. I start down the rough wooden steps that lead to the dock, careful as I step on the ones that have come loose over the years. This long stretch of stairs is so easy when going down on a morning as beautiful as this one, a "first morning" when I am not yet sore in every muscle from waterfront activities. Finally I make it down to the dock. Already the sky has grown lighter, changing to a rosy pink in the east, preparing to celebrate the dawning of a new day with an ever-unique sky painting. I settle myself into the wooden porch swing that hangs on the dock and take a few minutes to simple look around and absorb as much of the beauty that surrounds me as I can. And there I sit until the sun makes its first appearance, sending its golden light to warm my face. There I sit until the world begins to stir, with the fishermen on the lake heading home for breakfast, roaring by in their boats, and my brothers making their way down to set up for their morning fishing, speaking of a house that is awake and ready to begin the day.


   The day is fading. I am slightly weary from spending many hours doing the usual waterfront activities, but not too weary to go for a final tow. The sun has moved across the sky until it is positioned over the channel, a narrowing of the lake that leads back toward the Yellow Creek Falls. It sits, shining bright and long, preparing to set. Finally other boat traffic has cleared from the lake as, one by one, families and individuals dock their boats, heading to supper, leaving the the waves to subside and the lake to calm into that smooth, glassy state that is ideal for waterskiing. Many in my family have themselves already headed up to the house to get ready for dinner, with only a few of my brothers remaining to fish for a little longer. My dad gets the boat and I get the skis, and we head out.
   After moving out a good distance from the dock, dad stops the boat. I have my life jacket on already, and, as he casts the tow rope out over the water in a long, slithering throw, I fiddle with it, adjusting the straps until it fits comfortably. Then, grabbing the single slalom ski I walk to the end of the boat. Dropping the ski into the water, I follow right behind it, pushing off the boat and plunging feet first into the lake. The slightly warm water closes over my head momentarily before my life jacket pushes me back to the surface right beside my ski. With familiar motions, I allow the life jacket to support me in the water and slide my right foot into the binding of the buoyant ski. Aligning myself with the boat, I position my foot and ski at and angle through the water in front of me and reach to my left to grab the tow rope. I hear the boat's motor cough and start, and I hear the "clunk" as my dad shifts into gear, moving slowly forward, pulling the rough rope through my loose grip until the handle at the end comes to my hands and the rope is taut between me and the boat. Keeping the tension, I position my body, right knee to my chest, ski angled, tip barely emerging from the water, left leg dragging to balance me as I start. I hear my dad call back to see if I am ready, and I call back that I am.
   With a roar the boat begins to accelerate rapidly. My arms strain as I pull back against the rope, and my leg, tense, pushes against the force of the water. Spray flies up, wetting my face, and suddenly I am standing! Water flies by beneath the single ski and I balance, bringing my free left foot around to the back of the ski, quickly working it into the toe strap there. Once both feet are securely in place, I shift my weight to my back leg and lean to the right. The ski's edge catches the water and sends me cutting over the rough water of the boat's wake and out, free, onto the smooth water outside. I ride there for a bit, enjoying the perfection of the water and the beauty of my surroundings, every color being accentuated by the light of the evening sun, then I dig hard with my back left edge, turning sharply and sending a sheet of shimmering water up into the air to catch the golden light as it falls. I fly, leaving that behind, and bump across the wake to play on the other side. These are the moves of the dance that I love to dance behind the boat. 
   
   The sun is in it's last moments, I can see through the open window as I sit in the dining room, surrounded by family. The lights in the house glow cheerfully, shining from the windows as if to reassure the fading sun that they are there to carry us on and light our long night. The sun sinks behind the trees sending up its farewell with a last bloom of color in the west that slowly fades to purple, then to a deep blue, then to black. Night has fallen.