I had four days off. Memorial weekend. I had a plan, a clean brush, and every intention of painting.
My granddaughter had other plans.
She showed up in size 3 diapers and a whole lot of opinions about how we were going to spend the weekend. The barn and the farm animals came out. The little tan horse. The spotted cow. The tiny plastic fence that never quite stands up right. And we played. For four days we played.
We ate toast together, the two of us in the kitchen table like old friends. We made big loud bubble sounds that told the whole room exactly how happy and full and content a tiny person can be. We watched Winnie the Pooh and she sighed after every bottle like the whole world was exactly right and she knew it.
Not even close.
I am a person who takes painting seriously. I mean that. I have a real commitment to making the world a better place, canvas by canvas. I believe art deserves a real story behind it, not just a price tag and a nudge to buy. I believe you can’t force it, and the painting will show it if you tried.
I know all of that. I meant all of that. And for four days, none of it mattered even a little bit.
When she left, when the house got quiet again and the little barn got tucked back on the shelf, I walked down the hall toward my studio. You have to go through her room to get there.
I got to the door and stopped.
The room still smelled like her. Lavender baby wash, soft and clean and delicate as when I bathed her. Powdery diaper scent, that sweet and particular smell that only belongs to a baby and fades so fast you almost can’t believe it was ever there. It hung in the air like a gift nobody asked for, tender and golden and already going.
I couldn’t walk through it yet.
I just stood there. Not blocked. Not stuck. Not failing any version of the artist I think I’m supposed to be. Just not ready. Full. Still holding all of it.
I used to think the work was on the other side of the feeling, not inside it.
But standing at that door, with the lavender still hanging in the air and four days of giggling still warm in my chest, something shifted in me. A quiet little click, like a door unlocking instead of closing.
What if this IS the commitment? What if standing there, not ready, still full of her, what if that’s not me failing the art?
What if that’s exactly where the art comes from?
I paint old docks. Weathered tractors. Crusty, beautiful, tired old places where the light does something worth stopping for. I soften them just enough to belong on your wall. I want you to feel something good when you look at them. Maybe remember something sweet from when you were young, something you didn’t even know you were still carrying around.
That’s not a small thing to me. That’s the whole reason.
And I have spent a fair amount of time wondering where that comes from. Why those things. Why that feeling. Why does a weathered barn door hit me the same way a certain kind of afternoon light does, like something important is happening and I better pay attention?
Standing at that door, I think I finally had my answer.
It comes from the stopping. It comes from the not being ready yet. It comes from standing in the middle of something beautiful and choosing to just stay there a little longer instead of rushing through to the next thing.
It comes from four days of Winnie the Pooh and raspberry sounds and toast and sighing babies.
Patience with yourself isn’t soft advice. I say that a lot. It’s the whole job. But I think what I really mean, what I have always meant even when I didn’t have the words for it yet, is this…
The work is not separate from the living. The work IS the living. The pausing at doors. The smells in a room. The playing with barns. The staying in the feeling instead of rushing past it to go be productive.
The canvas can wait. The lavender scent won’t.
Katherine