Chaos

Chaos is not necessarily a scary word to me. It seems as if I sumliminally prefer to live my life in it. The older I get the less I worry about organizing and the more I worry about getting the most out of life. Spontinaety rules. I like that about myself.

Today while painting with the kiddos I got inspired to show my chaotic side. (Years ago I used to paint abstracts and produced a line of greeting cards and a series of paintings which my sister so graciously hangs on her walls. It was a chaotic time in my life. I was lacking direction and I was guided by pain and sadness. My art was produced out of pain.)

Today I watched my almost-four-year-old swirl the brushes around on the paper. I enjoyed watching him select the colors and mix them together. He's thinking in colors. How cool is that? (My other son--who is 21 months, prefers to try and put the paint in his mouth so we are not yet able to officially experiment with colors. Give us a few months though.)

I usually am banned to just watching my sons create. Today I grabbed that brush and decided to try using myself as a canvas. How chaotic is that? But it felt good to let go and to see my aging self in vivid tempura colors. The red felt good, the yellow-even better. Then came the green which inspired me to mix all of the colors on my face together. Amazing. Crazy-yep. Fun-yep. Silly--you betcha.

Having kids puts you back into a life of chaos. No longer are your actions your own. Your schedule depends on them, your reputation is defined by them. Your self image becomes burried deep in the sands of time. You look at yourself and feel lost, overweight, out of style--and old. I struggle with this so much.

It's taken me a few years--but I am finally embracing it all--this stage of life --the kids have taught me the art living in the moment. I thrive in the chaos and I share it with them. And today it was all artifically "colorful", passionate and beautiful.