A Big Step For Nettie

Having not painted now for almost three weeks I am finding it very hard to get myself back into my workspace and start being creative. Maybe spending so much time looking at the wonderful work of those of you who follow this blog and give me the privilege of seeing your work has made me question my own “talent.” I had promised a friend I would start back today.


This reminded me of the story of Nettie. Let me share a bit of it with you today.

It was a freezing cold day and there we were Nettie and I sitting halfway up the pathway leading to her front door. We would be about 20 yards from the door. We had two chairs out and she was wearing her mother’s old fur coat and I was well wrapped up in a big jersey and jacket. We were both wearing gloves and grasping a cup of warm coffee. Anybody seeing us must have wondered what we were doing. I admit we must have looked really silly. I was trying to make the cup of coffee last, drinking it slowly, Nettie was gulping hers down as fast as possible. I wanted to linger a bit longer, Nettie wanted to get it finished and get back into her house. Now what was all this about?

This was the first time since the birth of her daughter that Nettie had ever been past her front door. Her daughter was now sixteen almost seventeen. In all that time Nettie had never been outdoors. She was not even able to go out to her back garden to hang out her washing; her husband did that and everything else that involved going out. It was he who had asked me to visit her and meet her.

I had been visiting her for some time before the day I speak of. We had built up to this moment slowly and surely. Nettie had laid down lots of little “rules” about how it would happen and I had talked her out of some and agreed to others.

We had agreed to the chairs, first only one, being the agreed distance. The cup of coffee was mine. Small concessions had been made here and there. It had taken five days for Nettie to reach the chair this was day six when we had agreed to take a coffee and sit on the chairs and drink them before returning.

Here we were we had made it to the chairs. On our return to the inside there was a real sense of achievement. There were hugs and tears and much laughter. Nettie had made a great big step forward. I remember to this day her saying to me when we began to calm down, “What must I have looked like in my mothers old fur coat?” I replied, “You looked just marvellous to me.”

Every great journey starts with the first step.

The artwork used on this blog is discussed on my other blog:-Poppies (A Symbol of Hope)