Last night, around 11 p.m., I looked down in our darkened living room to see my wife, an artist, down on her knees, surrounded by adoring dogs. She was locked into something I couldn’t see, something at the food of the wood stove.

I couldn’t imagine what she was doing, so I asked her. I should have known. She was cleaning out the coals from the wood stove, taking a charred piece, and drawing sketches on the living room’s safety tiles and the Calla lillis she could see in the window above her.

The sketches are fantastic; they will be gone by morning. I wanted to capture them.

Maria is always an artist, through and through. I love my life with an artist; there is always blue around her, and she never stops being an artist. You can look at any windowsill in the house.