Saturday I went to a studio sale for an artist that I just recently met. But in that way we sometimes have,  I feel like I’ve known him for a very long time. Perhaps he is just that kind of a person, the type of person people connect to easily. Perhaps. Some people are that way.

The gallery was full of his beautiful landscapes, a body of work that encompassed years. He is clearing out his studio, and ready to embark on a new project involving travel, video, and painting, as well as a pilgrimage of sorts to the vast wheat fields of Middle-America. If he’ll agree to share, I’ll try to write about it on my blog.

He’s been a professional painter for a long time. He took a different flight path for his life than I did, and decided he needed to paint when I was still trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. But his life, like everyone’s life, is still changing and evolving. I couldn’t help but feel sad for the beautiful paintings that he said he was going to burn if they didn’t go to good homes. A big pyre, he said, that he’ll video tape as part of his next project. An incineration perhaps, of earlier chapters of his life, in order to reinvent himself like a firebird.

I looked longingly at the paintings, sadly totting up my finances to figure a way to own one of his works. “Which do you like?” he asked. I pointed out two that I loved, for reasons of my own. “How much?” I said.

He quietly and sweetly gifted them to me.

I’m sure we’ve met before.

This post is in response to a prompt from WordPress University Writing 101: A Room with a View