the plan.

the plan was to be back in the studio by now.

i miss painting.

part of me feels like it’s fading away. this thing in me that brings joy + Light. but a bigger part of me knows that i’ll always have art flowing through my veins. and that there is a season for everything. even grieving seasons with no liquid colors that dance and sound like magic.

the plan went off the rails somewhere back in 1997. maybe earlier. but i easily recall specific moments in my seventeen year-old memory where what i wanted in + out of life kept clicking further + further away. as if the more i aimed at the goal, the more impossible it became.

at some point, after enough blows to the plan, i learned how to restrategize. how to reorient myself to goals that felt more attainable due to circumstances outside of my control. i learned how to take the cards i got handed in life + play them as well as i could.

and mostly keep my mouth shut while i readjusted.

i’m not sure if my quiet drive to not suck at Life has been motivated by pride and ego or long-suffering and believing that everything will work out in the end. (and sometimes in the middle, too.)

. . .

i still dream of Husband and Home—

land + flowers + chickens. travel to the beach. travel to the mountains. snuggling under the aurora borealis. seeing + tasting + smelling the world. sharing dreams + then building those dreams to last for our children’s children’s children.

i still think this world is Beautiful. that people are mostly good, just broken. that broken things just need Love. because broken doesn’t mean death. broken means fragile.

and aren’t we all?

. . .

the paint helps me put it all back together in my mind—

my liquid therapy. harmony + melody + beat all pulsing out of my electric brush as the rainbow slides from the bristles + Love takes shape.

. . .

for the first time in a long time, i don’t really have a big-picture plan.

so i look within— focusing my mind’s eye— + i see myself: standing in awe amongst the cosmos, barefoot in a meadow of wildflowers, alone and surrendered. arms outstretched to fully embrace that which i cannot define nor understand. i cry out to Master Artist, “sure! okay. whatever You want— let’s do that.”

yet He remains a better poker player than me. mysterious. unyielding in His ability and delivery. His moves all flawlessly timed + executed. and with perhaps more magic than my mind can conceive hidden up His sleeve.

. . .

it’s hard to know where to go when everywhere i look i find deep wells of live-giving Hope.

‘question is— is my Hope birthed from desperation or destiny? and how to tell the difference between the two.

. . .

i still miss painting.

<3