That Lonesome Road, watercolor

Lonesome Road, watercolor, 5.5 by 7.5 300 ;b. d'Arches

At Trinity Presbyterian Church on 23rd Street in Oklahoma City recently, as the members stood up and asked for prayers and recounted their trials and tribulations, the wonderfully talented and always smiling pianist broke into song, one I hadn't heard before, "You gotta walk that lonesome valley."

It's listed in the African American Heritage Hymnal,  but the congregation didn't need the book. I went because I feel welcome in the small congregation, and journalist and former student Richard Mize is the pastor, full of rural aphorisms and stories.

Their version is a little different than Woody’s, adding the lines

"Jesus walked that lonesome valley

He had to walk it by himself”

Woody’s version includes

“You gotta walk that lonesome valley,

You got walk it by yourself,

Nobody here can walk it for you,

You gotta walk it by yourself…

There’s a road that leads to glory

Through a valley far away.”

These helped inspire today’s watercolor effort, as I have been thinking about our journeys in time—a universal theme, and being alone, or lonesome (two different things). Though we are never as alone as we sometimes imagine, "surrounded by "a cloud of witnesses," --the lives we've touched are always with us.

Other songs:

• "Look down, look down that lonesome road/ Before you travel on."--Gene Austin, Frank Sinatra
• "Are you lonesome tonight,/Do you miss me tonight?" - Elvis
• "I'm so lonesome I could cry," -Hank Williams
• "I fall to pieces."  -Patsy Cline
• "You were always on my mind" -Willie Nelson

Day 23 of WorldWatercolorMonth challenge

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Palette-Quin gold, umbers, siennas, thalo blue, a touch of cad red.