Burl Gallery Market Trees - St. Paul, MN

 All trees (20) are for sale at the Burl Gallery 11/29/2024 - 12/29/2024, $100 each.  I normally sell these for $150 each, but for the Burl Market the prices have to be capped at $100 for this annual sale. 









Fading Away


I have the honor of working in hospice, and don't consider someone 'old' until they've hit their 90s - so at 44, I don't imagine myself as actually old.  But, I'm certainly getting older.  Most people would agree as far as the physical part of getting older being not fun at all - that becomes clearer every day.  I joke that I'm meeting all the cliches - bald, need to lose weight, aches and pains.  Like, really bad aches and pains in my shoulder and knees, though not constant.   

Having lost my dad back in 2017, and having a lot of health struggles with my daughter, and finding that giving plasma twice a week is one of my few social engagements outside of work (it's really not even a social engagement) - and missing doing things with friends but recognizing that everyone has a million things going on as we get older - I often find myself trying to somehow revert back to childhood.  Rather, I find myself lost in the (good) memories of being a kid, having a loving home with parents who gave a lot of great experiences to myself and my sister - and desperately missing those moments.  

In the past year I've re-captured two of my childhood hobbies - remote control cars and Space Legos.  Both are a lot of fun to play with, but also painful - it makes me deeply miss doing those things as a kid without the concerns of adulthood. So I both love it and also recognize how much life has changed (as it does) since then.  

As we work on helping support our daughter, I've grown what I call my 'depression beard' - because I just have been too overwhelmed to do anything about it.  And as I am over 40 now, it was time that my eyes - which have always worked very well - to stop working at close distances.  I will say that I do like my progressives though, and it's nice to be able to see again.  That being said, growing way more hair on my face than I ever have, and now wearing glasses full time, my appearance has changed sort of dramatically in the past months.  

This photo is expressing the passing of time, by showing a current self-portrait of my holding one of my first every Space Lego sets from when I was 4 or 5 - and my vivid memory of first playing with it and how different life was then.  

I still have a lot to be grateful for - but it's also healthy to recognize change and that change can be painful and difficult.  Pretty much everyone knows this, and everyone could put themselves in a similar self-portrait with a similar toy.  So I welcome you to do so while taking a minute to look at my photo here.