Painting In Waiting

Beltaine, the birth of Summer, is right around the corner from us now. As usual, the coming season has me feeling restless, pent up with potential energy waiting for an outlet. It's hard to settle or even listen all the way through a favorite song as Winter's desire to sit and reflect gives way to the need to move. But no movement seems purposeful enough.

So here I am pacing back and forth like a tiger in her cage waiting not very patiently for I-don't-know-what. All I know is if whatever it is doesn't happen soon I may explode.

This isn't a need for sex, or for play. I know myself and both of those well enough to tell the difference. This is waiting for something outside of me, and what I do next depends on whatever's coming.

For me, one of the key changes of the seasons is shifting from writing in the winter to painting in the summer. I know this is coming because I cannot string two sentences together of late. In the last two weeks I've scrapped over a dozen pages of fiction that just refused to support it's own weight. In the meantime, the seeds of a painting have begun to grow in the back of my mind. Images stop me in my tracks as shards of the collage come together into a whole. I've done the preliminary ground work, but every time I thinking of reaching for my palette or sketch pad the little voice says "not yet, not yet. Wait."

So I do, so I am.

But I do wish whatever it is would hurry.

Ms. Betty