Beautiful Destinations
Spent part of the afternoon sorting through art supplies, tidying that space and my eye landed on my old art journals. I picked one up and it opened to this page. I looked at it for a good few minutes, smiled and was reminded that we find the things we need at the time we need them the most. Or words to that effect.
I have no recollection of what was going through my mind the day I did this page. Old magazine pages, that block of words, torn at the edges (I have a penchant for doing that rather than using scissors - I prefer that worn at the edges look in my art), some paint smeared with my fingers rather than a brush. When I’m creating, I will often use my hands - I like the feel of the paint, I like feeling connected to the page. Sometimes I use an old credit card or a key card from a hotel room. I like the strong edge on the plastic. But I digress. This is not about my artistic preferences and practices. Something about those words must have been a message I needed at that moment in 2020, the early months of the Covid pandemic.
Where I am at this stage in my life is nothing at all like the pandemic we struggled to get through, though it changed us all in one way or another. These moments are about change and needing to rebuild after an abrupt ending. I can hardly compare being shut out of a social media site with being quarantined to our homes, being parted from loved ones, and living in fear of what would happen if we became ill with this raging out of control virus. But we did have to start over once it was believed safe to resume living our lives as we had done before the world was turned on its head. Then again - did we really return to life as it was or did we began to create a new way of living because of the new knowledge we had gained - knowing that our world can stop in its tracks.
I’ve had a week to come to terms with that abrupt ending last Monday morning. I’ve had a week of making decisions - do I just stay away from social media, or do I continue to find a different path going forward? If I go forward, what does that look like, and what choices would I make this time that I didn’t before?
Like a child who has built a tower out of building blocks, stepping back to see what has been created after careful application and taking the time to reach the level of happiness at what those two small hands had built, who then sees another child walk by and knock it all down - simply because that child could, there I sat on Monday, looking at the block tower I had spent time building over months, strewn across the floor at my feet.
I’ve picked up the blocks and I’m rebuilding something new. They are the same blocks so some of it will look like it did at “the old place” but there’s a different feel to this new space. I see some familiar faces there, many are new to me. It has a different feel and I’m still trying to find my voice. I still have that, my voice. “They” didn’t knock that out of me. I’m just a little quieter for the time being. I’ve also found somewhere else to spread my wings, and as I stumble and bumble my way along, trying to figure things out in that location, that feels right too. A new challenge. Perhaps I was becoming too set in my ways at “the old place” and needed something bigger for my voice, for the words I want to share. I had outgrown it and needed the push (shove off a cliff) they gave me. I could be grateful and I’m almost at that stage - being able to say “thanks for doing me such a tremendous favour.”
I’ve left that difficult road in the rearview mirror and looking ahead through the windshield I’m seeing beautiful destinations that I’m eager to explore. Endings really do offer fresh beginnings. If you’re prepared to look for them.
