Ordinary miracles

The ordinary can be extraordinary when we're willing to slow down long enough to notice.

Those are words I continue to feast upon and ruminate through over and over again.

I missed many “ordinary” moments in my life — mainly because I had not learned to be fully present in the moment.

I’ll spare you the entire backstory. What I will say is this: life has an amazing way of getting our attention. Over the past several years, I have been humbled by the gift that is the present moment. Slowing down long enough to process it, experience it, revel in it, be uncomfortable with it, perhaps even traumatized by it at times.

Yet, it’s all we have. Right now. This. This very moment.

When you start focusing on it, you might be as surprised as I was — the present moment is the greatest gift of all.

A few years ago, I picked up a paintbrush. My daughter was getting ready to leave for college. My husband received an advanced health diagnosis. I had more emotions flowing through me than I could handle. They were coming out my eyeballs, ripping through my solar plexus, and manifesting in my gut.

“I need to paint something,” I exclaimed completely out of the blue. I had never painted before in my life. When I tell you it was guttural I am not exaggerating. Right then and there I knew I needed a set of paints and an open mind.

Off to the art supply store I went. I didn’t want to invest in anything fancy because I didn’t know if the moment was fleeting or not. So I picked up a kid’s watercolor set (complete with the plastic brush), bought some paper, and home I went.

I had zero clue what I was doing. But I knew I had to try.

I moved water and paint around on a page. It was magical. Pure, spontaneous, fluid magic.

My whole body and spirit took a deep breath. I felt connected. It was a voice I didn’t know needed to express itself. That was August 2022.

It’s now July 2026. I haven’t stopped painting. My eyes want to capture everything and anything that is beautiful so I can express it somehow on paper. Some of it realistic, some of it completely abstract, but it makes me breathe. Deeply. Intentionally. Profoundly. And it causes me to notice. Small things. Big things. Feelings. Colors. Light. The ordinary.

That ordinary … it really is extraordinary.

August 11, 2022 - a photo of my first painting with the kid’s set of watercolors, with my thoughts about starting the process.