Find that Golden Moment

"Golden Moment" 5 3/4" x 7 1/4" graphite on paper ©2015

This is the sketch for what was to be my November painting. This is an orange and white striped cat basking in the low autumn sunlight, with a roll of baled straw and fall leaves as a background. I love the contented, happy look on his face as he enjoys his golden moment.

With all of our changes, job hunting, packing and moving from country to country these last few months, there has barely been time for reflection, let alone time or space for painting.  I have to admit, I feel a bit disoriented, kind of like trying to find my balance while standing on a beach ball.

It's been good to be back in the States, but there has been a lot of emotion to be felt going through all our belongings to reduce them to fit in a smaller storage shed and going to the family farm to pick up my share of Mom and Dad's things. It was rather unsettling seeing the reality of the farm house empty and not having Mom and Dad there to greet me.  

One nice surprise was that my older brother, Gary, had arranged to have many of my Dad's Super 8 home movie films transferred into a digital format. What a treasure! Family Christmas parties and reunions of long ago, dear faces that are no longer with us laughing, watching myself and my brothers and sisters grow up, all in short little visual phrases, and pheasants...lots of pheasants and geese. Dad loved wildlife of any kind. I think he was making his own National Geographic nature specials.  Oh, how good it was to enjoy those moments again, sometimes wishing they were not so short!  Movie film was expensive, so every shot was carefully limited.   

All this nostalgia made me think about today. Is this moment, this "today" going to be a golden moment when I look back to it?  Will I think, wow, those where the good times...even though I feel disoriented and tired of not knowing what direction we are going in?  I know I don't have that contented look on my face!

I think those golden moments are just that, moments. I know there were sad and stressful things going on in those past times too. I think the great moments are short like the film clips, and short like that beautiful light when the sun is going down. Brief and beautiful. When the sun has gone down and the air is cool, that handsome cat will get up, stretch, and go on to find a more comfortable seat.  

We have to pay attention to catch the beautiful today or it will pass us by, leaving us longing for it in the rear-view mirror.

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I am practicing to remember to notice today.  I hope this post will remind you to look too. 

May your heart be fully warm and content in that lovely, brief moment.

>^-^<

Tina