I took the train to the coast yesterday … to the North Sea … to Oostende.  I was visiting my friend Marieke Janssen.  She and six other women artists were exhibiting their work in the De Feniks Gallery.

Marieke was excited.  She’d already sold five of her paintings at the show.  And she was going to share the gallery with me.

We walked near the beach beside cafés full of Sunday celebrants. They were raising their glasses to each other and feeling the sun on their faces.  Our steps were light.

We walked the old streets and some newer ones.  Our destination was lunch at Café du Parc.

I thought of art as we strolled.  The beauty of colour, line and shape.  At the café I savoured my mussels and Tripel Karmeliet beer … and the conversation with Marieke. As a latté approached, I looked down at the table. And this is what I saw:

Sugar for me and cream beneath. So elegant. The curves of the cone. The perfection of one part meeting the other. And something hidden.

***

The walking revealed the majesty of buildings – so many different ones. I was drawn to the vertical, the slender, the reaching for the sky:

I wondered if one family occupied all four floors. I loved the roundness of the balcony and the transom windows. I wanted to open the door and say hello.

***

At the gallery, I lingered with every Marieke work of art. And my eyes lingered longest here:

This is life, I figure. Folks enjoying the presence of others. Celebrating anything that comes to mind. Exploring other lives.

I wanted to buy the painting and hang it in my home. Marieke said the price was 420 euros. I let it stay on the wall.

***

The expressions of Oostende reside in my mind and in this post. That’s sufficient. I don’t need to own the cream-and-sugar presenter, live in the building or have Marieke’s partiers gaze down at me in my living room.

Letting them go

And having them be mine