Keeping an Eye on You

 13 1/2" x 10 1/2", watercolor & watercolor pencil, December 2008

From a photo I took

I wondered if this Great Green Macaw, its beak tucked under its right wing, was trying to sleep.  I don't see how they can sleep, since they're so noisy! 

  My dad often said, w/ a wink & a smile, "Someone's always gotta keep an eye on you."  So even today, when I focus on the eye of a creature, I remember this & feel Dad's loving presence :))  And I get why he would think that....

My husband, his daughter, & I were illegal immigrants for about ten minutes when we entered Panama (en el camino to the Bocas del Toro Archipelago).  After passing inspection at the first passport-inspector, the next border guard denied us passage unless we had proof that we would return to Costa Rica.  What to do?  We had already walked  - carefully! -  across the dilapidated bridge into Panama (which quite a few Latinas glided across with surprising grace & aplomb in their stiletto heels).  

A helpful Panamanian told us we could go to a nearby kiosk & buy a bus pass, good for the rest of our lives.   A meager amount of dollars later, we presented our bus passes to the same border guard, who waved us through.  The same stranger who told us about the bus pass kiosk offered to lend me his jacket for the three days we would be in "Bocas" because it gets cold at night.  He also phoned the shack at the über-rustic boat dock, asked for me by name, and said he was calling to make sure we were being taken care of & didn't need anything.  This gentleman made up for the chap in the passport office who reproached Em & I for the USA's attack on Panama City... when I was at university & she was a small child.

Stay tuned for artworks that tell more true stories:

~   of how singing "Buffalo Soldier" along w/ a crazy-behaving person in Bocas made him smile warmly... then go away {Moral of the story: You never know what snippet of experience or knowledge you have that will help you in the future; life itself is education!}

~  of an even more nervy border crossing from Nicaragua to Costa Rica; being called into the border station for questioning because they thought I was taking a $20,000 cultural antiquity out of the country; the relief & bonhomie everyone in the station felt when we figured out my mistake {Moral of the story: Take whatever happens to you in good faith, & remember when the culture you're in uses commas vs periods!}  [The Nicaragua series (yeah, there are more cool stories) will probably be "framed" in cigar boxes.  There's a reason for that ;)  BTW nobody asked about the $4,000 hammock!]

~  of the 14+-hour flight from Dulles (in D.C.) to Dubai, seated between two Afghani brothers who treated me like a queen... we prayed together, sang, & laughed our heads off for hours {Moral of the story: Prepare, at all times, to be delighted.  "Nothing is exactly as it seems, nor is it otherwise."  - Alan Watts}

Metric tonnes of true stories are clamoring to come out of me!  They're drivin' me nuts!  But now that I've given them some airtime here, they will relax so I can make more art (whew!)....

MAY YOU NOTICE THE BEAUTY OF THIS WORLD & THE GOODNESS IN PEOPLE