Yesterday he asked me if I enjoyed it more while painting or when the painting was finished. It was a good question. The first time I had been asked. I explained that at the start, it can be difficult, clunky even. This is the process of just getting some paint down. But if you keep at it, I said, one day, “C’est vivant!” — it’s alive! And with that life, things move very quickly. I suppose it’s like reading a really good book, I continued, so eager to get to the finish, but never wanting it to end. 

I recall Sunday afternoons of youth’s winter in Minnesota. In the darkness of 4pm, time crawled. We perched beside the stereo console and listened to the same record again and again, amid her promise that one day things would be so good, time would seem like it was flying. I smiled under the wing of promise. 

I’d like to think I thanked her for those clunky times. For the process. But I’m not sure that I did. I do now, covered in paint and beginning another canvas. Not waiting for the joy of completion, but relishing the paint on my hands and joy’s wind speeding through my hair. It IS alive! And so am I!