I opened a newspaper to protect my table cloth from the painting I was about to do. I saw an old photo of a couple, next to the quote: “A Life in the Writing,” and I had an Aha! moment. It’s difficult to describe the lightning bolt that hit me, but it has to do with the way I talk to myself in my head sometimes; because I am not yet an official published author.
I may not be published, but I am writing my 215th journal at the moment, and I write everyday. My journals drip with life. I flip through them and I feel full and satisfied. They are my great life’s work. I don’t know yet what to do with them. I would like to gather all the best parts together in one book. I am working on it, and have been for years. The going is so slow, because sometimes journals are like time machines. You read over parts of your old life, and suddenly you are transported back there. It can be illuminating, and emotionally draining, all at the same time.
I don’t know what is conveyed to you when you view this page. All I know is that when I created it: I was listening to jazz, and there was paint on my hands, red wine in my glass and I was happy! It is on these Tuesday nights when I listen to the jazz and create that I feel “the most me.” It weaves through my soul like a love I have known from the womb. I wonder if my mother played jazz while I was in her belly. These are the kind of questions I would ask her if I ever saw her again.
It’s like this couple from the past spoke to me. I realized that I don’t need to be famous. I am a writer, whether I am published or not. My life is a work of art, reflected in my journals. I am the author of my life. It’s strung like little beads of beauty that I collect as I go about my days: a hug from a stranger, an unexpected surprise or a flash of magic, the streaks of sun coming through the clouds reminding me God is everywhere, all the time.
I scratched into the gesso: “Sometimes in a flash of inspiration answers are revealed to questions unasked.”