We are hummingbirds who lost the plot.

Listening to: Syracuse by Pinback

I consider myself a lady of many trades. I'm a person who hasn't figured out all the stuff I'm good at yet, and am daily finding out the things I am not so good at. Temperance & patience top the "needs work" short list.

So, to me, it's funny that I paint. And am kinda okay at it.

It's been said that painters have a strong understanding of the stuff that life is made of, the building blocks right up to the intricacies and complexities. I think when most people imagine painters, they picture calm souls, gracefully creating art in the nude on their back porch, channeling nature and whatnot.

Like unicorns, these fictitious magical painter people just don't exist. Or if they do, I'd rather not meet them. Because that's not the life I've come to know, love, and argue with.

I think we'd like to believe that someone who is deeply rooted to the heart of this life is calm, cool & collected. Is patient. Has it all figured out.

But the truth is, I have learned, that painting really is just like life. I swear out loud when I paint. I scream, because it's frustrating. It hurts when the brush doesn't go where you want it to (often, in my case.) Painting days are a battleground on my little easel. There's no erase button, or rewind.

Something I love about painting - every staring match I find myself in with flaws or mistakes on the canvas is an opportunity to create. You cannot take back, but you can add, and build. You can keep the parts you like, and spruce up the parts that are displeasing.

And, like life, you have to pick somewhere to start, and see where it takes you.

I choose sky.

And then I wing it (pun intended.)

Every show needs a star. His feather-workings are a pirate ship worth of expletives. My secret weapon: a fork.

And then my friend Mr. Hummingbird came alive.

The result is something beautiful and something that I can feel proud of, but underneath the aesthetics, it's neat that there are mistakes. I am the only one who knows about most of them. 

Some of them can be seen if you stand close enough.  And I can be okay with that. 

After spending months birthing my friend and his world, I gave this life lesson to my mom for Mother's Day. 

And she found him the grooviest home imaginable.

Like he was meant for that little easel guy.