At the end of a recent flight as we taxied back to Tripp’s parking spot, I was captivated by our shadow.
6372 Tripp Shadow
Looking at it now gets me pondering shadows back into the past. Not just other flights earlier this year when our shadow passed across other people very involved in the different things they were doing, and only a rare few even notice our shadow crossing theirs.
3252 Shadows Crossing
My mind wandered back to childhood when my shadow was first so fascinating, and it crossed paths with the shadow of my departed Dad who also loved to fly. I’m often aware of the shadow his flying lessons cast forward across the decades, increasing my resolve to learn.
50 Past Shadows
Even further back, before I was born my grandfather’s shadow as an aviator often passed across the landscape as mine now does.
36 Grandfather’s Shadow
As they are cast from yesterday to today and out across tomorrow, how are the people and places our shadows touch, affected by our passing?
John & Anne Wiley 
As always, I am smiling at the thread of insights & connections made in your writing. With small grandchildren, the world is examined, explored & explained from every angle, including shadows. We avoid or we actively step on the shadow of each other, often with great dramatic scenes or with a simple game of ‘I got yours, you got mine’. But as you brought up in your blog notes, the shadow of both our living. & deceased ancestors is carried forward in our beings & emulated to some degree in our lives through their shadow presence.
Of course there’s also the shadow side of personality, the ‘evil twin’ who’s existence is alluded to but we rarely want at a dinner party!
As a painter, I am always in mind of the words of Emerson, ‘light is the first painter’, which also means that shadow must be an equal on the page. It all happens in the contrasting of the two, opposite but equal, the ‘perfect’ balance is sought to communicate the whole.
Love you both! XoM
Sent from my iPhone
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Comment by Merrilee — 2013/12/06 @ 17:02