Pastel Painting

My husband and I went bike riding by the C & O Canal on a lovely fall day last year, and, returning to our car, stopped off to rest by the grassy riverbank. The sun was slanting, making everything glow with wonderful light. A family with children playing caught my eye: the father relaxing on the bench with one child, a small boy in a bright red shirt, with his older sibling nearby playing on the lawn. They seemed suspended in such a timeless, universal human moment: a primordial, every-day happiness that brought to mind the Sunday afternoons of my own childhood with my parents, and more recently, my own family’s with our young son.