40 minutes before sunset at Giardino della Rose
Painting in public is a beautiful mix of solitude and community; four or five people politely asked to look at the work in progress and one girl asked for a photo of me painting. Each “Bellissimo!” and “Wow!” speaks more to the wonder of our shared view than to the quality of the painting. I love becoming part of other people’s stories, whether it is their vacation or daily life; they may never know who I am but my little painting in the rose garden is now a collective memory of Florence.
A little four year old boy observed, wide-eyed, and stuck his nose very close to the sketchbook when I told him in very broken Italian that it is okay to look.
A lady about my age introduced herself and said that she is working on a project and would like to ask me a question:
“What makes you happy?”
What makes me happy? This was not a question I was expecting.
With more time and thought I might have had a different answer, but I said first thing that comes to mind—
being open to wonder.
Of course I experience wonder at a Florence sunset in a rose-filled garden.
But I am happiest when I discover that splendid wonder which fills the quiet, everyday moments with family and friends and work and school. The sacred, sublime, incarnational joy hiding in the mundane.
A college kid asked for directions to Piazzale Michelangelo while I was balancing the drying sketchbook on one elbow and taking photos with the big camera in my other hand. He paused when I gestured up the hill with my sketchbook-laden arm.
“You are a painter?”
“Yes! Well, I am learning to be one. I am a student here.”
“Wow, to do painting and photos, you are very brave. It is a very brave thing.”
I wonder what in him prompted that curious response. I hope if he desires to create art himself, that he finds the courage to begin. As G.K. Chesterton says, if something is worth doing, it is worth doing poorly.
“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.
Neil Gaiman
Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.
So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.”
🌷 Afterwards I met up with a group of new friends, from all over the world, who are temporarily calling Italy home. Everyone is so welcoming!
