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| Time Left I |
At dawn the hazy sky was awash with a soft pink. I’m not much of a pastel person, but I’m a sucker for an early morning icy sunrise as rosy as a baby’s cheeks fresh out of a warm bath. Spectacular skies are one of the rewards of those of us who get up with the birds. Color hits just as the sun begins creeping up Stewart Mountain to the East. The display doesn’t last long. Those who get out from under warm covers to brave the freezing temperatures are treated to a few precious minutes of a blushing canopy overhead. What a way to start the day.
Shortly after today’s glorious sunrise I immersed myself in the hot tub and had what feels like a big Ah-Ha. I n spite of the fortuitous beginning of the day I caught myself worrying about the only thing I usually worry about . . . money. We were hit hard by the downturn in the economy several years back. Our work in art and personal development were marginalized, considered non-essential the business world. I understand. People were trying to hang on to their jobs, homes and were holding dollars under close guard. Our future contracts were cancelled, and past promises broken. We drained every covey of cash we had squirreled away trying to stay afloat. We kept thinking that after a few months, a year, the downward spiral would pass. It didn’t. In the end we forfeited our home, and landed back at square one with a hefty amount of debt.
We aren’t alone in our financial challenges. A large percentage of Americans were in the same predicament. That brought some comfort, but not enough to eradicate the worry that began to fester inside me. While I’ve never been a long range financial planner type, I had seen to it that we were setting something aside for the future. With that gone and many of our peers about to claim their retirement packages, the future started weighing heavy on my mind. Fearful questions emerged like a pesky mosquito buzzing around my ears in the black of night . . .
How long can we work? What if we can’t work? What if we can’t find work? What if we get sick and need serious medical care? Where will we live? What will happen to us? I had lots of fitful and sleepless nights fretting about all the bad things that could happen without any kind of financial safety net. Those nights never produced anything but a cranky disposition the following day.
The intense worry faded little by little with the passage of time, and the fluctuating, but slowly recovering economy. I found out that renting a home can be a true adventure. I lived on a quiet spot on the beautiful Lake Whatcom for a over two years . . . Now I live in a quiet little farm backed up to a mountain. If we hadn’t lost our house in town, I wouldn’t have known countless summer nights watching the bats fly over the water at sunset. I wouldn’t have listened to the call of the loons over the water while curled up in my pajamas on my front porch, or been able to create a studio space in a grand old barn . . . It has been an adventure, and one that I probably wouldn’t have chosen.
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| Time Left II |
When everything drifted away and my hands were empty I found out that it wasn’t the end of my world. I found fears I hadn’t known before. I experienced how terrifying life could seem while believing the perturbating voice of anxiety. I learned that fear is a story I could choose to believe, or not. I discovered that in a way, fear is cowardly, attacking me in the middle of the night . . . in those quiet hours when I am most relaxed, and defenseless. I found out that while it is a very real phenomenon, I didn’t like living with fear, and certainly didn’t want to do anything to feed, or encourage it.
Then something started to change. I began to tell myself a new story when anxiety would crawl into my rest. A story of possibility, a story of hope. I began looking around and paying more attention on what I had, what was opening up in my life, instead of focusing on all that had gone away. The power of positive thinking? Yes, and more--it’s not a simple fix. The real power lies in allowing myself to be present with it all . . . To hold as much as I can without jumping to react. The more I can stretch myself to witness the whole scope of my life in neutrality, the more space I create for conscious choice. I then become the leader, the creator of my reality instead of the slave to reactivity . . . Easy? I don’t think so, but a worthy quest.
Have I gotten rid of all my worries? Hardly. As I said, this morning I found myself chewing on the same old story . . . Money . . . How are things going to work out, what if, what if, what if . . . The good news is that I caught myself, mid-rant. I haven’t succeeded in taming the wild beast of my thoughts, but I did catch myself. I think this is the real game . . . Get more practiced with catching myself reacting unconsciously to the fearful story, then pause, and redirect my energy.
When I caught myself, I remembered the beauty in the sunrise. I started paying attention to the crisp cold air, the warm water, the tall dark green trees at the edge of the forest, and the little birds stuffing as many sunflower seeds into their bellies as they can. The anxiety started melting away. Then I had the moment, the Ah-Ha . . .
Maybe if I take care of today, what is right before me . . . REALLY take care of today, tomorrow will take care of itself.
All of a sudden I was dumbstruck. I felt as though a giant golden tablet of truth emerged out of the ground and hovered in front of my face. So profound, yet so incredibly simple--take care of today. That means no putting off things I’m afraid to do . . . things that are uncomfortable . . . things that I just don’t want to do. That means asking myself at the beginning of the day . . . What is mine to take care of today, and what part of that is the next step in this moment.
I think that if I really get into today I’ll be fully occupied, and have little space to worry about tomorrow. Future thinking can be unlimited. This moment is not limitless, and it doesn’t wait for me to figure that out. I’m convinced that there is an issue of timeliness in the inner mechanics of our lives as in the world around us. The rosy pink sunrise is only available to be seen for a few minutes. It will not wait. I believe it’s the same for possibilities in our lives. They open and close, come and pass by us without any awareness when our attention is elsewhere.
I wonder at all the possibilities I may have missed by worrying about a future that does not yet exist. I can’t do anything about that now, but I can endeavor to make this moment count, and leave tomorrow to take care of itself.
That’s what this artist is thinking about today . . .
About the paintings . . . Time Left I & II begin a small series of reflections on the time-constrained human experience . . . The veiled mystery of that unknown commodity intrigues me, and prompted me to paint my curiosity. These pieces are calligraphic-like abstractions of questions that can have no answers. However, even without answers the questions themselves can be valuable. The exploration just might inform my moments that will, at some point, become my time left . . .