Losing myself in the petal-like leaves felt so good after the long morning.
I laid back on my couch, staring up at the banana tree above. It's big, soft leaves stretched far out over the cushions where I rested, offering shade or perhaps a place of solace for the weary worker, with whom I could definitely identify today.
Long hours of painting and mishap after mishap on my laptop had led me to give up and plop down for some rest.
“I never do this anymore,” I thought to myself. “I should do this more often.”
Staring up at the sun-tinted leaves, I was reminded of how beautiful the world could be.
As a kid it was so easy to touch that beauty without any effort at all. I would run through the fields in my parents' countryside backyard, picking mustard flowers as the ground cover of soft blue forget-me-nots clung to my socks. Oh, what a lovely time that was – so full of life and fun.
I could still hear my mom's voice calling me in for dinner, and my response, “Okay, hold on, just one more minute.” I leaned over, gathering up the last few sweet pea flowers I'd found.
Life was simple and beautiful and full of fun back then... and now, here I was, at war with my computer, spending hour after hour writing copy and editing my website, entirely out of touch with my own being.
My full bottle of water sitting just past the computer was another reminder of how I'd forgotten to nourish myself today.
But looking up at the banana leaves and the large purple painting behind them, I was reminded of the sweet and simple joy of being human.
My paintings are often a way for me to reconnect with this sense of joyful wonder – the process itself carries me into a different dimension of reality where I can languish under forget-me-nots and giant, silky petals.
I love to take a bunch of flowers and grow them larger with my brushes. I try to capture the magic I remember feeling as a kid, covered in flowers as I ran through the fields.
In a world where I was much smaller, I could imagine those flowers being larger than life, as if I could nestle under them like I nestled now under outstretched banana leaves.
