Obstacles, End Points, and a Pack of Wild Flowers

Mobile: The Wham in various colors (40” x 24”)

On taking a break
“But if I stop, I’m not going,” said red fox.
“Now, you’re getting the idea,” smiled bear.

Thoughts while making
There’s a path. There’s always a path, isn’t there?

This particular one runs along the side of my house. Nine concrete pavers marking the way, an uneven line that connects inside to out.

Even without a sense of direction, it’s easy to find your way from door to studio behind.

There’s a way. There’s always a way, isn’t there?

As I’ve shared before, that path ends before it arrives, the last paver awaiting a next, stopping neither here nor there, lost in a sea of grass.

There’s an end. There’s always an end, isn’t there?

Each day, I move between my house and my studio home countless times, my mind racing ahead to what comes next, starting + finishing before I’ve even begun.

A whirled mind, consumed with thinkings that neither speak to where I am nor when I’m there, busy, so very busy.

Yet, today, I was asked to pause by a most unlikely interloper.

In this case, it was a rogue pack of wild anemone, pinkish bursts howling at me as they stretched across the path in search of fall’s fleeting sun, dew dripping from their yellow-tickled mows.

“You are not there yet,” they explained, blocking my way. “Nor are you where you once were.”

I stand there on those blackberry-stained pavers, dressed in clover and moss, and listen - considering what is right in front of me.

“You are here,” they continued, “and it is now.”

I’ve decided to call them my “beautiful obstacle,” an invitation that demands I stop, reconsider my way, take a different path.

For a moment, they’ve disrupted the hum of the Nonstop and reminded me of the Between, that which is all there is, that which connects here and there, past and future, me and you.

What’s a beautiful obstacle you can share?