"Sweeter Grapes"

"Sweeter Grapes", acrylic on canvas board, 2012.

Lately I have been consumed with concepts that have stayed with me from youth. I believe that if they have lingered this long in my psyche, they must carry some serious weight, have some connection to the life I would live, or a past one that was never resolved. Perhaps they are simply a few maps or tools I was allowed to bring with me out of the land of innocence.

This this particular memory is an Aesop fable that always stopped me in my tracks. Not only did I love the beautiful watercolor illustration of the actual book I owned, but the story particularly stirred and haunted me.

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       The Fox & the Grapes

A Fox one day spied a beautiful bunch of ripe grapes hanging from a vine trained along the branches of a tree. The grapes seemed ready to burst with juice, and the Fox's mouth watered as he gazed longingly at them.

The bunch hung from a high branch, and the Fox had to jump for it. The first time he jumped he missed it by a long way. So he walked off a short distance and took a running leap at it, only to fall short once more. Again and again he tried, but in vain.

Now he sat down and looked at the grapes in disgust.

"What a fool I am," he said. "Here I am wearing myself out to get a bunch of sour grapes that are not worth gaping for."

And off he walked very, very scornfully.
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Yes, it is easy to scorn that which you cannot have. But as a child, I mourned for the fox and his anguish. It occurred to me: what if the fox never gave up-- but instead just tried something different? What if he fought for what he wanted?