When I walk out of the front door of my house, the huge old oak tree towers over everything, sheltering the ground below with its dense shade. It is home to so many birds, squirrels and even butterflies, who fly up under its leaves to sleep at night.

It, along with three old slash pines, gives a feeling of large scale to the little ecosystem that is our home. I notice the different colored bromeliads, ranging from almost 6 feet high to just a few inches, the cobbled path with arches covered with fragrant climbing Jasmine and I know this is our version of paradise.

If we were to look at this scene from space, (the way we can with Google Earth), everything would be reduced to a green carpet, punctuated with streets and bordered by the water of Sarasota Bay.  The scale of the huge trees is gone, one piece of the green carpet looks no different from another.

Zooming back down to human scale, then continuing to zoom down, all the way to the size of a bird, the front yard has the look of a giant world. The trees are vast networks of branches to fly through, comfortable roosts and cozy places to build nests.  

As a child, you might remember getting really close up and studying things. Ants and beetles look quite different from that point of view. Bark reveals itself to be a wonder of textures, colors and tiny creatures.  Young eyes see the tiniest features of the soil, little rolled-up centipedes, grains of sparkling sand. 

These are just a few different perspectives possible without even leaving the garden. The views are infinite, depending on where we look from.  I remember a video of physicist, Richard Feynman, walking around his backyard pool.  He spoke about what we see and what we don’t, beginning with the spectrum of visible and invisible wavelengths of light.

Our eyes can only see a limited range of light, but there is a lot more. Infrared and ultraviolet, of course and then there are many more wavelengths that are out there beyond our powers of perception. Some insects depend on these invisible wavelengths to find food and each other. What would the world look like if we could see all the light that is constantly pouring down on us.  Our familiar yard would be a very different place!

He went on to talk about the water in the pool evaporating and becoming part of the air and touched on a few more of the myriad of processes unfolding in front of him.  From his perspective, the unseen was just as important and the seen.  It could be said that he was viewing the universe through an inner eye, the intellect.

In the class that I teach at the ArtCenter Manatee, in Bradenton Florida, I emphasize perspective. Even a class titled, Painting With Expression, needs to address that concept.  Attempting to translate what we see onto a flat canvas, requires us to understand how to create the illusion of space. 

At its most basic, lines converge as they move away from us, the classic view down a railroad track. There is a whole lot more to perspective, however. Clouds, for instance have perspective. We can tell when a cloud is closer to us or farther away.  We can see when a cloud is passing overhead.

Similarly, ocean waves have perspective, even endless prairies have perspective.   Perspective, it turns out, is a system of understanding where we are in space.  Standing on my front path, I know where I am in relation to the tree, the house and the street.

I get clues from the receding cobblestones on the path, the converging lines of the house, the way the trees taper as they arch overhead.  The shadows also help describe the flatness of the path. They get larger and more spread out as they get closer to me and more squashed as they move away.

Like Richard Feynman, I also see with the mind.   I know that my view from 5 ‘10” is only one of an infinite number of perspectives that are always available.  I’ve been using the word, perspective in many different ways, but it is even broader than that.   The perspective of a starving person as compared to a well-fed one. Or the view of a very old person as compared to a child. 

Perspective is a way of understanding where we are in the universe. We measure the world around to figure out where we fit in.  At its base, it is nothing less than a way of understanding what Reality is.

Like most of you, we are sheltering at home. It’s not unpleasant in my case, having a nice location in Southern Florida to shelter in with Debbie as a companion in our lovely home.  We have enough food and lots of creative things to do.  It’s almost like normal life, except with fewer distractions.

I miss having social interactions, however. We have had a few peculiar gatherings of less than 10 people in lawn chairs on the street, keeping a healthy distance from each other.  Bringing your own cocktail and chair is the rule, but there is an almost giddy feeling when we can have conversations in person.

These rare get-togethers remind me of block parties we used to have in Brooklyn, where for a little while, we converted the sidewalks and front steps into a living room.  In the current situation, we all seem to be hungry for social interaction.

There are other things Debbie and I are noticing on our many walks through the neighborhood.  There seem to be more birds than usual, singing loudly and flying around.  A few days ago, while having a socially-distanced conversation with Doug and Konnie, friends from around the corner, we witnessed a spectacular sighting of the rare Swallow-Tailed Kite, soaring above our huge live oak tree.

That bird has been described as the “coolest bird in the world” and I won’t dispute that description. I don’t know if there are more birds than usual, or if we are just out noticing them more and are able to actually hear them in the deep quiet that has settled over the city.

The water in the Bay looks clearer and the sunlight, brighter.  We are smelling beautiful fresh air as we walk and are now able to see the stars so clearly.  These are obvious effects of people staying home.

There are less obvious effects that we’re noticing.  People seem to be using the time they now have in abundance, to slow down, look around and notice the world around them. Because there is nowhere to rush off to, we are not rushing.  We’re gardening, listening to the birds, feeling the sunshine or hearing the delicious sound of rain.

I have been painting quite a lot. The sights in our neighborhood are the inspiration for the work I’ve been doing. I’m using acrylics that have a longer drying time than the usual kind and I’m painting freely, being conscious not to overwork.  The paintings appear to have a joyous exuberance that is a little strange in the face of the deadly Pandemic.

Perhaps they are a way to escape from the frightening news, or perhaps they are a kind of defiance of a force that is fundamentally changing our world.  Maybe its just the joy of being alive and breathing all that fresh air!

We have seen satellite images of China, before and after the virus struck. The before pictures show a yellowish stain across large areas of that country which is gone in the after photo, a few weeks after shutting down all the factories.  I have read that whales are for the first time in decades, able to swim and hear each other on their mating voyages, because of the absence of cruise ships.  Even the normally brackish water of Venice, Italy, is now running clear!

It is reported that approximately 4.2 million people die each year because of pollution-related illnesses. Maybe this virus could be a wake-up call for us. We have been rushing for so long, trashing the earth, water and air. Is this a moment to catch our breath and think about changing ‘business as usual’?

The virus is apolitical. It doesn’t care which party you belong to, what color, gender, sexual orientation you are. It has only one objective: to reproduce.  It’s interesting to note, however that people have ascribed political personalities to the microscopic killer.

Some refuse to stay home and shelter. They claim their rights are being trampled by an oppressive government.  They choose to continue assembling in defiant groups, distrusting doctors, scientists and medical experts. Some leaders advocate getting people back out shopping and working in order to “save the economy”. 

To me, there appears to be a split among people around the world and especially in the United States. Those who believe in Science versus those who do not. It’s the clearest example yet of the consequences of devaluing education.  

The ones who defy logic and continue to gather, will get the virus in larger numbers.  Though they might believe it’s something they can get and then recover, this is not a disease to be taken lightly, killing young and old indiscriminately.  

In the meantime, while waiting for the pandemic to pass, I will continue to create art, perhaps reminding people of the beauty of our world.   I will celebrate the joy of Spring and the renewal of our natural environment.

Our anxiety and fear will diminish.  We will gather again and hug each other. We’ll go to parties and parks, eat dinner with friends.  

Maybe, when this is over, we will dance in the streets!