Watercolors by Mimi Torchia Boothby

First one lands, then another. Then another. Two crows together feel safer than just one, and three, well, that’s gaining a little confidence, but not yet enough to be called a murder; a murder of crows, that is. Anything bigger than a squirrel could scare them all away..
A long time ago, I was a very unhappy teenager. There was nowhere in my life that I felt safe, except in the tenuous company of my friends. I say tenuous because we were all dependent on our parents, and any of our parents could suddenly change the rules and make us, any of us, even more isolated and disenfranchised. The world felt wrong because we were in a war we didn’t believe in, and it was time for us to prepare for our future as adults not having a clue about what was out there. Every teen was not like this, but I was, and so were some of my classmates.
This past month, I became reacquainted with a kindred soul. We went to high school together, she lived right at the bottom of the hill I lived on. She and I were never really close, we were both running, trying life out, looking for shelter. We both grew up. We both learned to love nature, appreciate wildlife, and the bounty and beauty of it. To celebrate how we have converged so much in our lives, we are exchanging paintings. She, from her corner of the wilderness in the far north on the east coast, me, from my urban jungle, far north on the west coast. Our paintings might cross in the mail, and I promise I will show you hers; but here is what I painted for Arlene, I hope she likes it.