Meg Evans

The online library supporting my digital art display was shut down last week. I knew that was bound to happen sometime; the manufacturer went out of business six years ago, and the company that acquired it, Giphy, never did anything with it other than maintaining the database. So, now the display is permanently stuck on the last image I downloaded, which was a mountain landscape.

Over the years, I very much enjoyed being able to change the picture every day, creating a virtual window showing many imaginary journeys. Here is the most recent image I uploaded to it:

So, now I’ll have to look into what else is available that would make a good replacement. While writing this post, I felt as if I should’ve had some sad classical music playing in the background. A dark, rainy afternoon with heavy clouds definitely matched the mood. Tragic opera, for sure.

Now that I’m back home after my spring break trip, it was another typical chilly and windy day here in Ohio. Purple crocuses blooming in my front garden made it more cheerful, though, and I put a looping animated image on my digital art display to match.

The creator put a lot of effort into it, with clouds moving in the wind, a flock of birds circling, and some totally unrealistic but cute purple butterflies to complete the scene. I had to smile just looking at it, and I was left feeling grateful for all the pretty little things we share with one another in today’s world.

This week has been cold and blustery here. Even if it had been good weather for rowing, which it definitely was not, the river has been high. So I decided to go on a virtual rowing vacation by putting an image of the Banana River in Melbourne, Florida, on my digital art display. I got the idea from a sculling video showing that river on a beautiful sunny day.

When I looked for photos of the Banana River online, though, I couldn’t find anything with the great sunny weather I was imagining. Instead, I found a lot of high-water photos. Apparently the Melbourne area can be prone to flooding. The author of this photo captioned it “Rainy Florida.”

I put it on my art display anyway, as a reminder to be grateful for where I am at the moment. The grass may be greener on the other side of the fence—but sometimes it is underwater.

Like everyone else, I had to cancel spring break plans and have been staying indoors, except for taking occasional walks in my neighborhood. I am very thankful for the digital art display on my dining room wall. I’ve been using it as a virtual window onto hiking trails and other nature scenes, like this one:

Even though it’s not as good as actually being there, it does go a long way toward reminding myself that the world hasn’t come to an end yet. Wishing my readers happiness in small everyday things—and stay strong, we’ll get back to our normal lives before too much longer.

Because this season is so full of busy indoor activities, while often neglecting the need to spend time in the natural world, I try to balance things a little by putting autumn landscapes on my digital art display. I found this one to be very refreshing today:

I could easily imagine walking through those crackling, brightly colored fallen leaves and breathing the cool, crisp air of a peaceful day in late autumn. Although a virtual walk may not be as healthy as a real one, it is calming nonetheless; and when I looked at my heart rate on the Fitbit app, it was in fact lower. Wishing my readers a peaceful evening, as well.

Addendum: My husband got home just as I was finishing this post, and he asked me to come out and walk around the neighborhood with him. So I spent some time in the fresh air taking a real walk too!

The late-summer heat wave finally seems to have broken in my area. Today was much cooler, overcast with light showers passing through. Although the lawn definitely needed the rain (it just got aerated and overseeded), there’s always something melancholy about the sunny, hot days ending and the dark days of autumn and winter approaching.

So I decided this would be a good time to perk myself up by going on an imaginary adventure. I chose a picture for my digital art display showing the Great Wall of China on a rainy day, complete with a tourist walking under an umbrella.

The sky in the photo matched the natural light in my house well enough on this cloudy day to give the impression of looking out a window while traveling.

By the time my husband got home in the evening, the sky had started to clear, and we went out for a walk around the neighborhood. Not as much fun as going on an extravagant vacation abroad, perhaps, but we enjoyed getting outdoors anyway.

I didn’t really go for a walk in the woods today because it was very cold and icy here. I can tell when I’m getting cabin fever this time of year, though, because I spend more time browsing through outdoor photos. Over the weekend I downloaded some Creative Commons landscape photos from Flickr and put them into the library for my digital art display. This is the one I chose yesterday, after a snowstorm.

Seeing a snowy path through my imaginary “window” makes me feel as if I could get bundled up in warm clothes and go play in the snow, like when I was a kid. I haven’t actually gone exploring in a winter wood in a very long time, and I must confess that I don’t even own a pair of sturdy winter boots anymore. The snowblower is my husband’s domain. When we have a winter storm I’m usually sitting at the computer, or maybe reading a book on the couch.

Still, it puts me in a cheerful mood to see something that looks like a window onto a vast wild forest where I could spend many hours happily wandering around, even if it’s only an illusion.