Chapter 30
As part of its downtown renaissance, Golden had constructed a twelve-mile walkway beside the Oxbow River, in faith that “if we build it, they will come.” The desired gravitational pull began, in very short order, to draw young families, children, lovestruck couples, elderly strollers, artists, photographers, tourists, troubled souls in search of calm, dog owners, and runners to the waterside thoroughfare.
But even when busy, the Riverwalk, as it was known, rarely felt crowded.
Anyone hoping for a place to sit quietly had no shortage of options available to them.
On his bench beneath the chestnut oak, Theo had an open view, upstream and down, from which to watch, hear, and cast his thoughts into the flow of the Oxbow. Where the current might take those thoughts on any given day was a mystery.
They often returned to the river, four thousand miles away, near his childhood home in Portugal.
That river, the Douro (“river of gold”), traversed the wine country and was much like this one: tree-lined, navigable, and musical.
It ran through villages, through the countryside, over stone, and beneath bridges, in areas lightly populated or entirely secluded.
And like every river everywhere, it hosted sunrises and sunsets of unspeakable and often unnoticed beauty; it welcomed the adventurous and the amorous, fisherfolk and philosophers, the playful and the plaintive.
Decades ago, it had welcomed a little boy with a keen sense of wonder and an eye for the sublime.
On the blissful days of spring and summer, when the scent of ripening grapes was in the air, a scent that would somehow be bottled and sent around the world to be enjoyed at future times and distant tables, he would answer the call of that river, blessedly free, to spend hours by himself or with other young friends.
Imagine a boy on a bicycle:
Past the pastel-tinted storefronts and dwellings (the stuff of postcards and travel brochures), beneath the thunderous bells of the church building, through streets filled with aromas of sardines and coffee, surrounded by a shadow of antiquity that coated ancient structures with shades of teal and ochre, and accompanied by the romantic language of the Portuguese.
By that route, the boy would arrive at the footpath to the banks of the Douro.
Once there, the serious work of play and exploration took over.
There were local fishermen, at the riverside or in their boats, to be studied.
There were birds to be watched — lapwings, kites, swamp hens, eagles — nests to be discovered, stones to be upended, and any number of extravagances beneath them to be scrutinized — shells, crustaceans, slugs, smaller pebbles.
If he were with other boys, as was often the case, there were stories to be invented, castles to be built, battles to be fought, and feats of courage to be dared and performed.
And, of course, there was wading and swimming.
That young boy, now grown old and resting on a bench in the American Southeast, watches the same sun that, decades ago, had tanned his strong shoulders and glistened in his ink-black hair on the hillsides of Southwest Europe. And he wonders…
Might it be that water from the river of his childhood had found its way to this one, that the cyclical life of rainfall — sky to earth to sky again, over and over — had brought the elixir of the Iberian wine country to this place?
That the river of gold in Portugal had come, through cloudburst and current, to this river of gray in Golden?
And had some of Golden’s flow found its way to the hillsides of Theo’s childhood?
Was there, after all, only one big river that flowed across the earth?
Across the river, a thread of color, woven into the evening clouds, caught Theo’s eye and conjured up a memory from boyhood.
It was summer.
A Saturday.
Clear weather.
Theo left his bicycle at home and walked into the town that morning. He and his friends spent an energetic day together — kicking futbol, walking through the marketplace in the town center, sitting among others at the fountain, and finally, exploring the riverside.
By late afternoon, the small gaggle had begun to thin, falling away one at a time until Theo found himself alone, walking home by the route that allowed him to stay beside the Douro for as long as possible.
For a young boy like Theo, one with a sensitivity to the subtleties of light and color, the beauty of early evening was entrancing, even if he had no words yet for the feeling of sacredness that was taking up residence inside him. Perhaps there are no such words.
As he walked the footpath along a treeless stretch of shoreline, he saw ahead a small fishing boat, Menino do Rio, anchored at an eddy among short reeds.
It was a simple craft, outfitted with oars and an old three-horsepower motor.
It was well maintained, freshly painted, and filled with all the equipment of the trade: nets, rods and reels, line, catchwell, and bait box.
The owner, like many in the region, probably worked the vineyards and the river — depending on hour of day and time of year — harvesting from land and water for his daily bread.
Near the boat on the riverbank stood a fisherman whom Theo had never seen before.
The man wore high rubber boots, a short-brimmed cap, and the working clothes of a commoner.
His heavy shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, was stained with the evidence of a day’s catch.
He was stocky and muscular, a fact that became clearer as Theo walked toward the man.
Heavy stubble highlighted his strong, square jawline.
Thick eyebrows guarded dark, serious eyes.
At first, Theo could not tell what the fisherman was doing.
As he stepped closer, however, he realized the man was painting a picture, standing at an artist’s easel, facing west. The man held a palette with small bowls of color in his left hand and a paintbrush in his right.
His eyes were fixed intently on the sunset and the distant shore.
He did not seem to notice the boy approaching hesitantly from his left.
Not that young Theo was afraid or timid, not in the slightest. Rather, he sensed intuitively that the man was doing work worthy of silence and should not be disturbed.
Theo stood behind the stranger, with only a few feet between them, and watched as the western horizon took shape in miniature on the canvas.
With each brushstroke, the fisher-painter’s sinewy arms rippled, as they did, no doubt, when he pulled at his net or fishing lines.
In both cases, the man was in quest of a catch.
At the moment, he was intent on catching the sky in front of him.
The little boy discerned a pattern in the artist’s work: observe sky, observe canvas, brush to palette, mix color, brush to canvas, stroke or dab or blend. Again and again and again.
Without knowing he had done so, Theo had inched forward until he was standing close enough to touch the fisherman, close enough to smell the odd, subtle fragrance of oil paint and perch.
“If you’ll step here, I believe you can see the canvas better.”
The fisherman’s voice startled young Theo and brought him out of his daze, but he said nothing in reply. The man continued speaking, as if he and the boy were old friends who had long been in conversation. He only looked at Theo from the corner of his eye. There was a welcome in his voice.
“Any fisherman knows that this is the best time to be fishing. But artists know this is the enchanted hour, when the sunlight is most magical. It’s hard to know sometimes.
Fish or paint, right? Fish or paint? Well, I tell you, this time of year, I’m afraid I have no choice.
I always make time for this. And thank the Almighty, I had a nice catch this morning.
A full net. If I could, I would do this every evening for the rest of my life.
I would stand right here every evening and paint that same tree line, that same horizon, that same sky, and no two paintings would ever be the same. ”
Theo listened without reply, not fully understanding what the man was saying. He watched like one in a trance as the man painted.
Observe sky. Observe canvas. Brush to palette, mix color, brush to canvas, stroke or dab or blend.
The man, brows raised in query, looked at the boy with a disarming gentleness in his eyes.
“Am I getting close? Is it done?”
The boy remained silent.
“The problem with a sunset is that it won’t stay still. In a single minute it can change itself entirely. See?”
He touched the brush to the canvas at a streak of orange that he had applied only minutes before.
“See?”
Then, he pointed his brush toward the western sky. Instead of orange, there was now a muted shade of violet.
“It’s already gone. Oh, well.”
The fisher-painter continued working without further comment. The canvas was almost full of color, and the act of benevolent larceny, stealing a sunset, was almost done. A small portion of the canvas, at what should have been the river’s western shoreline, remained unpainted.
The fisherman stepped slightly in front of the easel, knelt down, and pushed the handle of the paintbrush into the soft ground beside the water.
He pushed his finger into the gray sediment and scooped out a dollop of sludge.
He stood, returned to the easel, and began to rub the mud into the unpainted spot on the canvas.
“Use what you have. Now you. Give me your hand.”
Theo obeyed. The fisherman put river dirt on the boy’s right thumb. “Now paint.”
Theo stood motionless, uncertain. The fisherman, a bit more insistently but not unkindly, repeated his instruction.
“Paint. Here, do as I do.”
By way of example, he dragged his finger left to right, careful not to press too heavily into the canvas. Then he took Theo’s hand and guided his muddy thumb along the painting’s surface.
The fisherman leaned back and chuckled. “Well done. You are now an artist.”
Theo smiled shyly.
“Now, boy, your dear mom is going to be worried if you don’t get home soon. If she’s upset with you, give her this, and tell her you were painting.”
The fisherman took the canvas from the easel, handed it to the boy, instructed him to be mindful of the wet paint, then patted his shoulder and pushed him along.
Theo walked home with the sunset in his hands. When he turned away from the river and into the streets of the town, he looked back a final time to see a small but strong figure in the distance, pulling oars against the current of nickel-plated water.
For weeks after that evening, Theo returned to the river, expecting and hoping that he might meet the artist again. It was not to be, and Theo wondered if the evening, and the bestowal, had ever really happened.
Most assuredly, it had.
On the wall behind his desk in New York City, a framed canvas of western sky and Portuguese riverbank was tangible proof that fishermen paint sunsets and angels are real.