Preface of a Harbor

A woman facing water

Has existed in art longer than memory itself
waiting
grieving
remembering
becoming

The harbor is not merely a place in these sketches
It is the human condition
the shoreline between staying and leaving

I drew the figure again and again in charcoal
because charcoal behaves like memory
it smudges
disappears
darkens where touched too often

And the lighthouse became abstract on purpose

Some people are not meant to be rendered clearly
Some loves survive only in silhouette

So I kept stripping the image down
less harbor
less certainty
more white space
more silence
until all that remained
was a woman
an ocean
and the unbearable softness
of standing still
while something inside her
kept drifting toward shore