If my easel were a face, each splatter of paint would be, not a wrinkle, but a laugh line. Proof of all the joy it has experienced. 

It wasn’t new when I got it, but it was clean. And I don’t mean that as a compliment. It was yearning for a canvas, like a piano for a tune. With each stroke, it seemed to gain strength, beauty. I can’t tell you which was the first painting it held, but I know that it’s still in there, a part of each one that followed, a part of each one to come. 

They call it an oeuvre – the complete body of work produced by an artist or creator. Sitting in front of my easel, I stretch my laugh lines thinking, well, isn’t it the same with the heart — the oeuvre of my being. My complete body of work. 

I haven’t seen the actual images, but I imagine, if you opened me up, straight down the middle, snuck behind my ribs, you just might find a pulsing, a splattering, of joyful and vibrant color.