Fear

If my coach through the Evolve class weren’t so frickin’ awesome, lovely, smart and kind making me trust her completely… I would have easily gone back to hiding under my rock. She has set my world off axis. She has me writing about fear. I did an exercise for her last week and it took all I had to put it all out there and then actually send it to her. Now I have another… and I am not sure I can stomach it. It is due on Friday and I have done everything to avoid it. Painted the front porch, went through the boys clothes, weeded the entire yard, scrubbed the kitchen for three hours, and even made a big dinner much to Chris’s surprise!

So today, I decided as the boys happily played “Wolf Den Hotel” in the basement, I would go work on a canvas that is literally haunting me. It is a puzzle that I just can’t figure out. I have spent hours putting layer upon layer and while I like the essence of it, it is just not coming together. So after another hour and completely frustrated I decided to just remove it from my studio. I went and shoved it in the other room as it seemed to tell me that it needed a break from me as much as I did from it.

AHHHH>>> out of sight! Good.

I grabbed a tall skinny panel and began to take some of the paint left on my palette and smear it.
Not feeling the brushes, I reached for my blades. I love my blades. I have had them for so long now. They are worn in well and feel like an old friend. I began to squeeze out insane amounts of paint, letting intuition guide my color choice. They are dark. They match my mood. They look like fear.

Damn. There is that assignment again.

Okay, fine. Let’s do this.

 I am going to paint my fear and give it a place to live. I am going to let it remain powerful, but give it some beauty.  I am going to let the glimpses of light shine through the darkness. I am going to learn to hold onto them.

 A swirl of thoughts and memories flood.

How I love to pull my blades across the thick, shiny paint revealing a bit of the layer underneath.

 I think of my friend who goes into the deep slot canyons of the earth year after year. His pictures are stunning and when I see them, I think there is no way I could ever… fear. But those perspectives……

I think of the fires raging in Colorado and the fear others must be feeling. What a quick frame of mind adjustment.

I think of swimming in the quarry in Richmond as a little girl. That dark, deep water and all of the unknown… fear. But how I miss water….. I want to jump in and cool off. 

Vermillion feeds my soul. To many I imagine it is a color of fear, but I find comfort.

I love to paint… I feel whole. I feel peaceful.

I put my blades down and let my fingers begin to dance in the paint. I feel connected. I feel focused. I feel so very grateful fear brought me to this moment.