I’ve been fighting with a painting for several months.  I started it at my old house, and for some reason, I couldn’t do anything with it. 

Today I talked it over with my dog, and decided to attack it.  Paintings are usually not this much work!  We’re still not seeing eye to eye, but it has changed a lot today. 

I eventually took it off the easel and started a new one. I’ll return to it later. 

I can’t force paintings.

Sometimes I struggle for a long time, then one day out of the blue, I revisit it and find the solution to be simple. 

I’m in no hurry. 

It can be hard, and I can wrestle with it. I was given a permission slip today.

I just emerged from my sauna.  I love the low light, the heat, the hiss of water on the stones.  

Without trying, my mind wanders in an inward spiral. It’s not overthinking, which my mind does in other rooms. It’s the opposite of that. It’s stillness that magnifies what is in the depths, rather than the waves of events and errands that conceal things with foam and reflections. 

I retired at the beginning of this month, which is a dream come true. At the same time, it’s an adjustment that takes time. Even new shoes need to be broken in. 

I’ve often felt that there was something wrong with me.  I mean seriously wrong that disables me from doing the things I once did. Things that defined me. The words of a friend came back to me in that calm. She said that there is nothing wrong with me, it’s just that that contract has been fulfilled. 

When I paid off my car, I didn’t continue sending the monthly payments.

My first ever post was “Dream Fragments”, in February of 2006. I’m still doing them all these years later.

Unelman palasia