Do I believe in serendipity? I believe there are no coincidences. But did I believe that a painting could change my life? No, I did not.

But the painting by Wellfleet artist Traci Harmon-Hay (the one on the cover of Above & Beyond Wellfleet) did change my life.

I still utter a small gasp when I look at this painting—similar to the one that I made when I walked into the Outer Cup Coffee shop and saw it hanging on the wall just inside the front door.

The coffee shop was my haunt. It was where I went for several months at the crack of dawn—when I couldn’t sleep and was waiting for the town to wake up. At a corner table, I wrote in my journal, and tried to take in the fact that my life had been rudely wrecked by the death of my husband.

It turned out that the painting soothed me, and it awakened me to see what would become my new life.

How did that happen? The answer is in the The Painting.

I share it with you as the first chapter in Above & Beyond Wellfleet.

-Constance B. Wilder

Please download the chapter The Painting by clicking here.​