Last week, I celebrated my 56th.

Last night, I realized a truth.

It happened in the time of  disengaging from book and deciding…okay, gotta sleep now.

Your mind’s half quiet, half -scattered. You recall the day, the week, the past, the present.

I should have written it down, this rambling towards truth I decided to make more true, to hold tighter, more cherished and sure of.

I’ve been painting.

I’ve been writing.

I love art and I love words.  I love standing back, head tilted and hand lightly resting on my heart, pausing with, yes, yes.

Or just to write and get to the end, read again…and again, quietly exhilarated in the perfection of my expression that mirrors feeling.

But, I’ve never ever called myself an artist or a writer.

Because comparison and duplication get in the way, get in my head, cause me to strive towards mimicking.

When truth is, all that matters is that

I am content in my expression.

Content in the spilling and smearing of paint.

Content in the dance of my words,  of their pause, of their telling stories of skies and God and life.

So, I wish I’d written it down, the thought before sleeping that went something like deciding to be

content in my expression and resting there,

the trusting one.