Painting Moments Worth Living For

You know those times when you find yourself just sitting somewhere random, or maybe walking, or maybe driving, and you don't try to control or direct your thoughts for once? You know those times when it's quiet and late and maybe even dark, when the mind becomes somewhat more of a mystery than it normally is. Because, when that happens, when I'm riding in my car and driving on pure instinct, or when I pace around my room while loosing my purpose for getting up in the first place, the mind wanders.. I guess I'm lucky in that tomorrow's to-do list or mile-long grocery list are not the things that appear before my glazed over eyes. Instead, I paint pictures. I can think of no better terminology than that, for they're not snapshots of remembrance. Nor are they poetic justices suddenly ruptured into being and begging to be captured and immortalized in print or on canvas. These are images of the ideal-- images which show themselves in colors unknown to man, textures so vivid and tints so alive that they become fantastical. They prove a source of longing, because when compared to the world around me, it's reality that seems marred and cheap, like a fabrication and imitation of the real thing, of my pictures. They find a way to trap my dreams and paint my hopes in my very minds eye. I'm filled with longing for moments like those I paint; and I wish in moments like those that I could humanly grasp such striking beauty and passion in my life. If only I could discover the source of these ideal moments which I seem to subconsciously formulate in the quite times. Then.. I realize what prompts and inspires these pictures, this wonderful gut-wrenching flood of colored emotion. They're but glazed over memories, focused memories, wishful memories, hopeful memories, the seizure of emotion found in a particular moment focused in a way to saturate the picture of that moment in feeling. I am always stunned to find myself present when my life becomes one of these pictures. The times which mirror the ideal. I've found the difference in reality and my painted pictures of idealism to be that in my pictures, I could fade the background.. there was no past and no future, simply a present. In my pictures, the details could remain so vivid because they were not smudged in doubt and faded with tears. I realized what I had been doing.. to take a scene, an experience, an action, a look, a breath, a touch, and remove that instance from reality. Take that precious moment and bring all the life hidden in the actions and skin and eyes and make them as vivid as they truly deserve to be. To truly appreciate each screaming nuance of a face full of love, or longing, or regret. How easy is it to go through life experiencing things, if we never take the time to appreciate them. To not find and pick up on certain times in our life which need to be savored.

Close your eyes, and pull reality onto your pallet, onto your canvas, and paint a picture of truth and honesty. Get lost in your picture and in that submersion discover the true meaning of love, and life, and what you want and long for out of both. Even if the picture, which seems to form of it's own accord, is as simple and fleeting and innocent as a girl lying on the grass with a rose stuck at her feet, facing a guy whose very face, whose very eyes, whose very smile, is worth living for...

Yeah, i think that's what i find.. the moments worth living for...