It’s week 16 of my 52 Week Cards Project and this is the first time so far that I really struggled to find a theme—AND it’s the first week that I didn’t meet my self-imposed deadline (Mondays). Oh well—I gave myself a break and wha la, it’s Tuesday and I’m done.

I found it curious that I just couldn’t find my theme. Normally at week’s end, when I think about my experiences and emotions that week, the theme quickly comes to me—in words. Then I find the visual composition to express those words, generally by brainstorming in my sketchbook with quick thumbnails until I hit on something I like.

This week, though, the words just didn’t come—and instead I found my way entirely with image.

First—briefly—my week:

I spent it with my brother David, where we traveled to a region of Mexico I had never been: the town of Loreto in Baha California Sur. The trip was kind of spontaneous as David wanted to check out the area to possibly live sometime in the future and I volunteered to come along.

Even a few days later, I have to say the whole trip feels a little surreal—yes, almost dreamlike.

I have’t traveled internationally since well before the pandemic, and David and I have never traveled together without family and friends.

Or maybe this surreal feeling was in the air of that quiet desert town perched on the edge of a most amazing Sea of Cortez (considered to be—as Wikipedia tells us—”one of the most diverse seas on earth”.)

Maybe it was the sea. I think it was the sea.

Off the coast of Loreto the waters are protected as a national marine park and UNESCO world heritage site. The whole area is teeming with birds, sea mammals, fish—and shellfish. We saw at least one species of birds that exist nowhere else except the Galapagos islands—and so many others not found too many other places in the world. Piles of empty sea shells line the water’s edge where you can walk for miles.

On a boat, we saw a colony of sea lions and dolphins, osprey and blue footed boobies (yep, that’s the bird species found nowhere else except here and the Galapagos.). I got to snorkel off Isla de Coronado, one of five nearby islands in the park—an underwater dream for sure.

I guess it was appropriate that I found my way to this week’s card in almost a dreamlike state.

Unable to find a theme in words, I started sketching images that came to mind. The two that took hold were the Great Frigate, a pterodactyl-like bird we saw everywhere overhead (only found on coasts of the Americas)—and of course the ocean waves.

I didn’t quite understand why they felt important, but I just let those images lead the way.

As I drew and painted, I thought about how this was a week where I seemed to step in—and out—of time. Past. Present. Future. It all seemed to mingle somehow. This place felt so grounded in the past—the frigate bird surely born of dinosaur ancestors. Or the Mission de Loreto. It turns out that it is the first mission the Spaniards built in the long string of missions that go up the California coast until the last one in Sonoma—near where I live.

Or the long conversations over dinner that seemed always to bring us back to childhood…

And of course the ancient, ancient sea and all its life forms.

In—and out—of Time. Making our way through the strange landscape of the present—on our way to the future.