I dole my attention out from a diminishing storage of time. I practice thrift in using the hours, but still the days slip away, one indistinguishable from the next.
Instead of a collection of habits and plans, can every day instead be its own work of art? Could I begin the morning with this intent, and in the evening, admire my own handiwork, as though I have transformed a simple clay flowerpot into something wonderful?
I've set myself the challenge of becoming an artist of the day. I know it's important to choose my materials carefully, in the manner of a bowerbird, a basket weaver, a collage artist, a bouquet maker, a writer of a short story collection or a poetry chapbook or a novel.
Dusk. On a high shelf a basket holds stones still warm from the sunlit field.
The male bowerbird creates an elaborate structure to attract the female bowerbird. He displays objects that might please her.
I want to lure serendipity to my waking hours. Art becomes inspired when accident enters the room.
Art is balanced, intentional, skillful, but it also allows making a mess to give rise to meaning. Art can be practical, harmonizing, disrupting, profound.
Making each day a work of art means to really invest in the day instead of just trying to get through it, to bring the awareness of suffering and delight to the simplest task.
Can I be as engaged on the difficult days as I am on the easy ones?
"If we can hold it all in our hearts, then we can make a proper cup of tea.”
- Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom of No Escape
Anything I do can become my own creation.
Every run is a work of art, a drawing on each day's canvas. Some runs are shouts and some runs are whispers. Some runs are eulogies and others celebrations. When you're angry, a run can be a sharp slap in the face. When happy, a run is your song.1
To make art is to see the treasures that are hidden in the dullest of days.
Between Walls the back wings of the hospital where nothing will grow lie cinders in which shine the broken pieces of a green bottle - William Carlos Williams
Dagny Scott Barrios, “Every run is a work of art”
The first sentence totally got me, just beautiful, the entire piece captures so much of how I feel, and expresses it in a way I’m not able, suffice it to say, I’m sending this to my daughter asap. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🌝Ten stars, plus the moon