Why is it we seem to have to go to the brink in life to awaken to ourselves? I don’t know anyone who escapes life’s tragedies and is wiser for that lack of experience. We seem to learn the most profound things from those big moments and near misses. But once in a while, if we pay attention, we get a moment of clarity that raises our awareness and appreciation for life, without the suffering.

Life is full of work and things to be done, or avoiding them and living down a rabbit hole—I choose the first one most of the time. By the time I exercise, clean the body, feed our household, do the most necessary of cleaning jobs and get what sleep I can, there is comparatively little discretionary time. And these days one of my joys is thinking about creating things rather than life’s big questions, which if I were going to be able to answer them, I probably would have in my 68 years on this earth. But I haven’t and probably won’t. I think about colour themes, about how to discern value more effectively, and what effects can be achieved on which kind of paper. And about trying to be honest and kind, both of which are challenging endeavours.

Some days I’m lucky enough that my morning walk helps me see a new corner of the environment  to enthuse my painting sessions. In between all of the above I keep inspiring myself with new reading, listening and viewing of other artists’ works. One morning I was listening to a podcast interview with Andrew Greig, a Scottish poet and writer. I love a Scottish accent. (Must be genetic as my paternal Grandmother’s family was named Carlisle.) What captivated me was the title of the interview ‘When I’m dead, I will love this.’ He tells a story of running home in the cold and rain from the fish and chip shop, to keep his meal from getting soggy. And he thinks, as clearly as anything, as he is running, how wonderful running and a hot fish and chip meal would be if he was dead. I get it. It left me with shivers and tears on the rims.

We whir around in our complex world full of news stories and disaster and lists of jobs and people to please, when all the time we are doing the small miraculous things that humans do. We are spellbound at sunrises, marvel at nature, rejoice when we find a key we thought we’d lost, are amazed when our children are so much smarter than we were at that age…or kinder  than we realised. These things we know. They are right in front of us every single day and we forget to look. We forget to think, ‘when I’m dead, I will love this.’

**This was going to be my last blog post. I had decided…or so I thought, I had nothing left to say. But after thinking it over the last couple of weeks I’ve decided this is the one place in my life I have the most control, where I can make up most of the rules. I even pay to keep the ads off this page so that you all won’t be dogged by those who glean data to try to sell you things. I won’t try to sell you anything. This is just my experience in the world for you to take or leave as you wish. I’m going to hang around for a while.