April 1 - Fool or no Fool?

Fool - defined as "a person who acts unwisely or imprudently;  a silly person.  Or as a verb - to trick or deceive someone.

April 1 - known as April Fools Day.  A day of tricking and deceiving.

Back on March 1, I issued a personal challenge to myself to complete 30 paintings in 30 days.  It was fun, and exciting, and promised me an opportunity to get back to painting.

And I was successful, for 15 days.  Then, I stopped.

"Why" you might ask.

I've been asking myself the same question.  Until just now, when I looked back at the calendar, and found my "ah ha" explanation.

At about that same time, I made the decision to leave a part-time job that I had been working for the previous 13 months.  Please refer to my blog below dated February 25 if you would like an insight on the "why" to that decision.  My last day on that job was March 7.  I spent the following week trying to catch up at home with some things that had been allowed to pile up.  And then, around March 15, I made a new commitment, to endeavor into a fairly significant writing project that had been bubbling up in me for quite some time.

So I think the answer to what happened with my paintings was that I switched the direction for my creativity.   I began writing.  It wasn't that I didn't have time to paint.  I just felt my creative energy moving in a different direction.  Several hours, every day. Without missing a single day, until yesterday, when I allowed myself the day off for Easter.  Back to it at 7:30am this morning in my car at the beach, where I stayed until 10am.

I was feeling like a failure for not completing the 30 in 30.  Was I a "fool" for taking on such a task, making it public, and then not completing it?  I think not.  There are still 15 new paintings that were published.  And so many of you kindly asking me about it, following me on Facebook.  I do intend to complete it.  Though in all truth, I may not get back to it for another week.  I feel the need to allow the writing process to become truly anchored as an every day activity.  It is a significant part of my life right now, and deserves its place in my life, right now.

Back to the fool definition.  I'm surprised to see the word silly.  Silly?  yes, I certainly hope that I'm silly.  Silly to me is far different from foolish.  Silly means the ability to look at life and laugh, perhaps when others might not.  The capacity to find joy in sometimes the smallest things.  Embracing life with eyes wide open to the magic within each and every day.  And seeing God's grace at work in and through all of it.

Laugh.  Laugh broadly.  Laugh wholeheartedly, and unashamedly, as a girlfriend and I did the other evening at a restaurant, that had people asking us what we were laughing about that we were so "silly about it."

So sure, call me a fool if you'd like, for setting that 30 day goal, making it public, and not finishing it, and being willing to it.  I'm not worried.

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.  (Alfred Lord Tennyson)

Yep, done that too.

So, I'll paraphrase:

'Tis better to have painted and paused, than never to have painted at all!!!'