Grateful

Grateful: warmly or deeply appreciative

William H. Channing: Symphony

"To live content with small means; To seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; To be worthy , not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; To study hard, think quietly, Talk gently, Act frankly; To listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; To bear all cheerfully, Do all bravely, Await occasions, Hurry never. In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common.
This is to be my symphony.

I'm not sure what it is about this morning, but when I looked outside and saw a beautiful blanket of snow AGAIN, I just couldn't resist a little pang of excitement. I know it's cold and yucky and messes up everyone's schedule, but regardless-- the snow is beautiful. It's been such a rare experience for me over the years that every time I see snow, I automatically get excited at the wonder and the beauty of the scenery. Like the fog, it covers all the little imperfections of the landscape and makes even the ugliest old shack seem romantic and peaceful.

I haven't posted in a while because I've been in a funk. I haven't sold many paintings recently, and somehow that ties in with my self confidence more than I would like for it to. I'm gearing up for a solo show and THE art festival of N.C., Artsplosure-- all in the same weekend in May. It's probably a good idea to hoard paintings right now so that I'm ready for my big spring!

Here is the latest fog painting-- finished a couple weeks ago. I am grateful to be a painter-- to see the way I see-- to feel emotions the way I feel them-- this is who I am, regardless of where I am and what I do for a living.

The verse above is something that my good friend, Vicki sent to me over a year ago. I tacked it to my fridge for months until we moved, and now I have the e-mail pasted into my journal. Recently I saw it in Oprah Magazine again and was reminded of how much I like it. I don't pretend to subscribe to the poem every day-- I wish I could live like that daily. It's more like I read it every once in a while and say-- oh yeah! I need to be more like that ... and I do need to... I think we all do. Life is just a succession of moments-- enjoy them, study them, ponder them, or ignore them and they'll fly by before we realize what we've lost.