Brushstrokes

Brushstrokes

 

By John W. Vander Velden

 

The years seem to fly by.  Our lives so busy we seldom consider the place we find ourselves.  The young, with so much canvas before them, don’t even notice the brush held which has set the first stokes to their art. Going day after day, doing what might seem mundane, yet forming a framework that years hence will be unable to completely erase.  How a person deals with the everyday create the subtle colors and shades of their masterpiece.  Times the brush paints with fervor -- bright colors -- reds and blues -- green and gold.  Those days we find ourselves in changes most dramatic.  However when things settle in to new patterns and change comes more slowly, the colors subdued, soft shades, lavender and peach -- mint and silver.  Life and its changes never cease while we have breath and so the painting goes on.

Those that have the years and take the time, might step back and consider the art that reflects their lives.  Too easy for us to dwell upon each of the picture’s imperfection – mistakes -- poor judgments -- foolish decisions, and become angry with ourselves.  But those flaws are but a part of the whole.  They make us human.  But there are also the grand and beautiful scenes we most often ignore.  Times of love and compassion -- of self-sacrifice -- times when we have been our very best.  Does not art reflect the light and the dark, and does not our painting show our best and our worst.  We are not so bound to the past, to the things we once did, to the people we once were, for transformation is always possible!   Does not our painting show change and growth?   Our lives are not cast in stone -- but rather a great painting forming -- a lifetime of brushstrokes.

(306 Words)