From the outside it seems my life changed overnight. It felt so out of the blue, so unexpected. In reality, I’d been through this all before and before that. But every time I forget, every time I resign it to my past and put it in a tiny box I don’t let myself open.
One day I was training at the gym as I always did, I was running my kiddos around, chatting with friends, working on my business and playing the solo mum game.
The next, my body struggled to be upright, I couldn’t shower or stand at the bench to make school lunches. Most of all, I couldn’t accept it happening again.
That day turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months but before they did I picked up a paint brush.
Grieving the I life I had loved and cherished, consumed by a longing to go back, unable to do much more then lie down, I started to paint.
At first I painted on dark backgrounds with meditative white lines. Over time the lines found colour and the backgrounds transformed from black to white.
These lines became my candles, my light in the dark; painting granted me hope.
Everyday I painted and this glimmer of hope expanded, it started filling me up and nourishing my spirit as only hope can.
The months rolled on, my physical body remained much the same but with each painting I was becoming someone new.
I was embracing concepts of impermanence, the ebb and flow of life, the beauty that lies in the here and now, in the everyday, the simple, ordinary, everyday. I was embracing all of me, no longer separating myself into parts that I do and don’t like, into wrong and right. Just seeing all of my colours and all of the colours in others and appreciating the beautiful tapestry they weave.
Over time I stepped back, I took a wider view and I saw that although my life was playing out nothing like I’d planned it was bright and magnificent and full of good bits. The dark, the stormy, the all consuming hard were merely outlines and tiny dots scattered here and there. If anything they only complemented the magic I’m blessed to call my world.
As I take out my paints and canvas’ I give thanks to the darkness for without it that brush would never have met my hand.
It is my hope that my art will bring love and light into a world that at times feels dark and heavy; that the work I share can inspire in another the life changing concepts it has inspired in me.
