Revenge of the Chipmunks

    After four months of tending the vines and fending off hordes of chipmunks, we harvested the tomatoes.  Or rather the forty percent of the tomatoes that hadn't been gnawed or dragged off to the provinces.  Victory was ours!   We gorged on the tomatoes, noon and night.   Turns out my innards are tomato intolerant.  Acutely so.
  There's a lesson to be learned here, but I'll be damned if I want to think about it. 

More than Enough

                            "The Bend, Again"  ©2013

   Years ago, I had an epiphany of sorts, courtesy of a piece in The New Yorker.  It told of a conversation between Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller at the home of a very wealthy man.  Vonnegut asked if it bothered Heller that the host had made more money in a day than Heller had from all of his Catch-22 royalties.  Heller replied, 'No, because I have something he'll never have.'
   'What's that?' asked Vonnegut.
   'Enough,'  Heller answered.
   I have 'enough' but I need to remind myself periodically.  In my frenzy to sell more paintings, I have ignored Heller's message.  It isn't what I want to sell, but that I can paint.  Fifteen years ago, I was a writer.  I dabbled in art to feel closer to my recently deceased mother (herself a professional artist).  My whole life changed.  I studied at the Art League of Alexandria, never allowing myself to hope I would be good enough to make the leap.  Years of classes, encouragement and passion, drove me.  In 2006, I was juried into the Torpedo Art Center. I am a resident artist.
   Even though I grouse about nearly everything, I can write and I can paint.  And, surely, that is enough.