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Have you ever wished you could control time?  Make it stop when something wonderful is happening, or hurry it up when you are suffering?  Remember when you were 10 and you couldn’t wait to be a teenager?  It took forever, it seemed.  What about now – are the days and weeks and years flying by? If you follow Einstein’s idea that time is a force affected by what is around it, we should be able to control time, given the right circumstances.

Well, I have yet to figure out that whole Einstein thing.  Obviously, I am lacking in the required forces! In the past few weeks, I have seen that precious commodity, time, flow like the proverbial leak in a dike.  No amount of trying to slow it down has been successful.  All I can seem to manage is to fit as many actions into the time as I can.

Now that my husband has been diagnosed with cancer, and we’ve begun his treatment regime, everything is scheduled.  Treatments, doctor visits, medications, meals, sleep – all at a certain time on any certain day.  As I am shouldering a number of tasks that previously fell on his responsibility list, my time is being stretched as never before.  At certain times, I am obligated to be a certain place, doing a certain thing.  That happens a lot. 

It has become more and more difficult to “make time” to be in the studio.  I find it harder and harder to go to the studio, with so many other household tasks that need doing.  I even take turns feeling a bit guilty for leaving my husband resting in front of the television while I trot up the stairs to be alone with the canvas and paint.  Some might say I should just put that “art stuff” aside until “things settle down.”  How little they understand! 

The studio, the act of creating something beautiful from raw paint and canvas, and the satisfaction of the process from beginning to end – these are moments that feed my soul.  It is as if I enter a place of peace, healing and grace.  Being there, being who I am, speaks of what my purpose is in life.  It reminds me of something within me that restores me and makes me whole. In the studio, that creative person steps out and dances!  That person bursts out with hope and joy, and has fun!  So, how can I stay away? Who wants to miss a great party?  I don’t! 

Except for commissions, I create work smaller instead of larger, so I can complete pieces in a reasonable amount of time and keep feeding the creative flames (and supplying my gallery connections and collectors). I continue to explore new processes as the inspiration comes. Because the time is so precious, I find I am creating at a higher, more focused level than ever before.  When I come down those stairs to my other roles, I am refreshed, restored, and ready in mind and body to do what my responsibilities require of me.  I’m ready to face whatever comes, and be an encourager to my spouse as he wages his own fight against disease. 

I may be a caregiver, a business professional, a housekeeper, financial officer, contractor, landscaper, active mother and engaged grandmother at some point of my time each day.  One thing I am every moment, no matter what other hat I am wearing, is an artist.  Art plays an important part of my life, and I would not have it any other way.  Who knew those years ago when I first began that creative journey, it would come to be so essential to how I see myself and who I will always be. 

So time will keep on rolling, as it has and will always do. I’m so glad that I am an artist, in all things, in every day. What a blessing!