My sister told me a month ago that she had taken up water color painting. She is teaching herself how to paint. If you know my sister, you know she will soon be painting beautiful water colors. She is incredibly, bright, creative and focused, and no one works harder at anything than my sister when she decides to take it up.

She has always been self taught, and has most often been brighter than any of her teachers. She lives by herself in a remote corner of New York State with her five big dogs, her town makes mine look like Manhattan. She has had a challenging and very difficult life and has given rebirth to herself into a love she loves with good friends and a great love of a life with animals.

She has remarkable hope and generosity of spirit, I have never heard her utter a word of complain or lament, and when I fell apart on my mountain nearly ten years ago, she was there for me every single day and night, whenever I needed her to be there. I cannot imagine having gotten through it without here.

We remain close, even though we don’t speak all that often. It is a closeness that does not need words and is beyond consciousness, in some ways much as many people have with certain animals. She is my only remaining connection to my original family, and I love and admire her, and am grateful for her presence in my life.

We were very close as kids, and tried hard to protect and support one another in difficult times. I was very excited to hear she was taken up painting and have nagged her for some samples. She is just starting out, teaching herself, experimenting, but even this practice page shows a feeling for colors and shapes and patterns.

She has a strong scientific bent and she will figure this out, I am excited to see the ones she sent me and can’t wait to see more. Go, Jane.