A Year in Paint (so far)
The click of the keys switches something in my brain. I’m on. Tapped in to myself.
The back and forth of the cuckoo clock my metronome, I begin the cadence of my day. The sun begins to peek through the windows highlighting the early morning drips of dew. A shower for the new day.
I breathe in deeply.
Coffee is already doubled and done for the day since mine began at 4:15 a.m. I was up with the chickens (if I had the chickens I dream of) and somehow I have already finished one Nancy Myers movie and am on my second by 6:30.
Bedtime came early from too much pain for too many days in a row. My body finally gave out yesterday, my energy completely drained and my pain at an all time high. I spent the whole day prostrate and I was dozing on the couch by 7 p.m.
It’s a strange business–feeling so alive because you are paying watchful attention to how worn down your body is.
I’m coming to you now, pausing our daily year-in-paint posts, a little over halfway through the year. The first full year after learning of my diagnosis. The year I decided I would paint every single day. The year I have spent writing to myself, my family, and you about the gentle and not-so-gentle happenings of paint and life.
It has been a brutal year.
And I have never, ever been more alive.
In the moments when beauty strikes, it literally takes my breath away.