Tag: Art

It’s quiet here in my home, an old place as homes go. Morning calls beyond windows open, a hushed symphony in a city moving gently. I had no idea I missed it this much. But the ease and appreciation are telling on me.

The drive here from Georgia blurred past, a 6 hour stretch whispering hints of days gone, telling stories wistful, satisfied with wishing and fullness. I always tell myself I’ll be back there very soon, to enjoy the richness. Then 6 months blink. This is life, isn’t it? Moving rapidly through us, playing us, driving us and flowing us along. That we can seize the day, seize the moment or create something in the midst of such a tumult of demand is amazing to me. But this is the voice of a mother…

A mother feeling the end of something, remains of the summer curling up in the fires of a sun too hot. At this point next week, I’ll be heading to day two of classes and my daughter will be into her second day of high school. Life refuses to slow down. And roles are shifting, weighing in the balance of needs long unmet.

That’s why I appreciate the days spent with family, grabbing time to water tomato plants, watch the butterflies and look down a long gorge past trees and at the river flowing fully. Time is precious, the way we live our moments of eternal now, what we choose to do, to invest in for days to come, to spend and know we’ll see no more.

Standing in awe of Monet’s works at the High in Atlanta, it struck me how some of his most significant pieces unfolded out of the autumn of his life. I reflected on how much my daughter has been voicing my heart’s cries, upset with how much she did NOT get out of the summer, out of a week, a day. And how busy we’ve been, nothing “lazy” to our days.

But my daughter echoes a sentiment I have come to learn to manage, a longing filled with layers whispering so many possibilities and so little time.  I want far more in one day than is even humanly possible. Then I stand there in front of a vast expanse of Monet’s color beseeching reflection upon reflection and all that’s left to do is sigh. So much we may produce in our “late” years if we’re willing to dance the dance of allowing life to be what it is, of time to wash us in a tide of creation, of seizing the moment to take one more brush at the layer of color on a canvas, of artfully flowing with the deluge of demands refusing any apparent artistry even when our efforts provide no guarantee of vital monumental proof – proof we loved and felt so deeply moved by life itself.

Somewhere in it all, we manage to live fully when we can both grab and release, keep and drop all we long to express in a life weaving threads made precious by our own values and the immeasurable worth of each breath . . . and . . .

the winged sprite feasting on yellow, refusing the burn of brightest sun, gracing the face of life for just a moment of color . . .