Things Will Happen To Us

Side of a building in Lisbon, Portugal

 

There is nothing like a trip abroad to shake your brain up and give you a new perspective on life. Travel simply messes with your head in the most interesting ways. It's like someone shaking a bento box until its contents are all mixed into one big colorful mess so no matter how hard you try to put it all back, it's never quite the same lunch again. All those compartments you thought could fit stuff only in that one certain way are suddenly expanded. You can see new nooks and crannies that never had light shed on them before. How did I miss seeing all these new ideas? Solutions to old problems suddenly come easier now.

Clearly we just returned from a trip and my head is full of all the wonders we saw. It's all in there just tossing and turning right now. No new paintings are self-evident yet. I need some jell time before seeing what will emerge. For now, I'm enjoying a period full of happiness at the lovely, jiggled mess in my head right now. I feel expanded...enlightened even.

“When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like the squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in.” – D. H. Lawrence

I have no idea on how to keep these feeling fresh and alive. I can only rush to embrace them now; examining new solutions to old problems, looking afresh at my comfortable old world, and trying to make habitual in everyday life the new things I found wonderful and sensible.

Good travels to you!