Add color everywhere, even in the most unusual places. Paint your world.
I’m not a hedonistic person by any means, but I sure do like using the five senses God gave me. Black and and white and gray are good, but full color is so much better.
I’m a night owl by nature, but there is only so much you can see in the darkness. Lighting is everything. In photography. In life. And that is why almost every room of my house has an abundance of candles. I like the way each candle flickers and illuminates everything around it. The right lighting can change the mood and the plot of every life story.
Early morning lighting is like a breath. Take it in, let it out, it’s gone. But it’s beautiful.
Usually the only time I catch the sunrise is after I have been awake all night, usually after writing for an extended period. I rarely can write snippets. When I do, I typically end up discarding them.
When I write, I’m rewarded by the sunrise. It’s as if to say, “Well done. Here is your reward. It’s not a prize; it’s an experience.” Every sunrise is an experience. And that is why the sunrise holds so much meaning for me.
I remember a trip to Montana, standing on a deck with a blanket wrapped around me, waiting for the sunrise. I remember early morning trips for coffee, riding into the sunrise. I remember waking up after sleeping all night in a tent in a pasture on the edge of the woods, a horse’s muzzle within inches of my fingertips and the sunrise saying hello.
And though every sunrise is fleeting, very sunrise has with it the potential for its coordinating memory to be carried the rest of our lives. Memories sustain us and remind us what is good and what is bad so that we can set our feet in the right direction.
My friend Emily concurs with her description of the sun, its lights and colors:
You dropped a purple raveling in,
You dropped an amber thread;
And now you’ve littered all the East
With duds of emerald!
I like sunrises better than sunsets because sunrises say hello and sunsets say goodbye.
Sunrise or sunset, I do enjoy the color. Full color, full of life.
In my life’s journey, I’ve discovered that we can spend our days storing away our treasures without taking time to enjoy them.
But wouldn’t it be better to have less and to fully embrace what we have rather than to have our treasure chests full and never see their colors?
Our treasures are not our silver and gold. Our treasures are the moments we spend with the people we love.
The Stage Manager in Our Town makes a poignant revelation:
“We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars . . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being.”
I especially like the follow-up question from another Emily I’ve come to know. She asks, “Does anyone ever realize life while they live it…every, every minute?”
And the stage manager responds, “No. Saints and poets maybe…they do some.”
I’ve often wondered why since a child I’ve been drawn to all things colorful, expressive, beautiful, poetical, musical, artistic, and harmonious. Now I know.
I have a bohemian soul.
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