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For two months they had a life of their own. Alive on the walls of Capital Coffee. They saw Christmas, then New Year's pass.

Countless cups of coffee were drunk.

Yesterday I quietly reached between the late afternoon patrons, excusing myself. Maybe telling a soft joke. Taking down the paintings/assemblages one at a time.

It's always easier taking down a show, than putting it up. Going up, there needs to be an envisioned design. Spacing, complementing. Coming down, it's merely a stuffing process into a plastic bin.

The paintings are back home again, where there are other paintings/assemblages. These were the lucky ones this time. They momentarily saw light.

I must admit, whenever I see my paintings overcrowded in a plastic bin, I remember the storage cages at the retirement home where my mother once lived. One cage in particular was filled with paintings. Neatly stacked, upright, side by side. I was overwhelmed by an eery sense of time gone by, or was it loneliness.

I thought of the painter.

I thought of the painter's children.

I remembered being a child.