A good day

Yesterday was a good day.  I got not one, but two, one-woman shows scheduled (fall 2014 and summer 2015 – details to follow).  In my book, that’s an exciting start to a morning. Though, in my usual style, that excitement was quickly followed by a mixture of self-doubt and self-deprecation.  Would I be ready?  Would by paintings be ‘good enough’?  Why has this taken me so long?    Blah, blah, blah.  However, in a concerted effort to challenge these automatic, and negative, thoughts, I followed them up with a big, red, screaming “STOP.”  Yes, I’ve been back in the Coal region for 5 ½ years, and yes, these are the first one-artist showings I’ve secured in that time, and no, Northumberland County isn’t NYC, or DC or even Philly.   But this is ‘home,’ and I’m creating, and my work is getting out there, and people like it.  And, most importantly, I’m happy.

And, in addition to scheduling those two shows yesterday, I also successfully bench-pressed 100lbs (my current goal in training for an upcoming lifting/running event), got an email via USFencing requesting my participation in a research study as an “emerging/elite athlete,” (What?  Who?  Me? – insert sheepish grin), I worked a little bit on a research project of my own in the hospital, and was sincerely thanked by a parent for helping with their kid.   In fact, looking back on them, the last few weeks have been pretty darn good.  I helped a teen lose 20 pounds, was told I was important in the life of another, won a local epee competition, and traveled to see good friends. 

Now there are qualifiers on all those ‘victories’ – there always are:  I need to be able to lift more weight by the end of February, their definition of ‘emerging/elite athlete’ was fairly loose and several hundred people got that email, my research project is moving at a snail’s pace compared to what I’d be doing in a major university, the competition only had 9 people, and another teen I work with is still struggling with symptoms a year into treatment. 

And so quickly the half-full glass becomes half-empty.  There is always work that can be done faster, projects that could be done better, people who are “succeeding” more than I am.   And maybe if I gave up any one of the things I am doing, I could probably do those other things, faster, better, more ‘successfully’ (whatever that means).   Sure, for every bout I win against someone half my age, there’s another I lose to someone twice my age, sometimes my run turns into a walk (okay, a hobble) when one of the joints in my falling-apart-faster-than-it-should-for-my-age body is screaming, there will be another family who storms out of my office because they don’t like what I’ve said, and I’ll likely bring home more paintings than I sell at whatever the next exhibit it.  But I am doing all of that.  All of it.  And that’s pretty darn amazing. Because someday, I will not be able to do this.  But today is not that day.

So I’m going to resolve to practice gratitude for all my little victories this year.  Notice them, speak them, and, sometimes, share them.  After all, isn’t that what creating art is about – noticing and sharing tiny pieces of beauty and meaning that otherwise go unnoticed and buried under daily labors and defeats.