Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Detail of a new painting I just finished last month. I am working on a series of paintings with a similar composition and imagery.
At last – back online! When we moved this week, we lost our DSL, and it won’t be up and running until later next week. So I have to do as much emailing and online work as possible while I am in Solvang this weekend!
I am a new woman now that we are all moved and settled into a new place. What a huge relief. I am now just two blocks from the beach in Venice and already I feel so at home and at ease there. I was walking on the beach my first morning there thinking about how much I used to dream of California when I was a little girl growing up in Camp Lejeune, NC. Thinking about the fact that I am actually living this childhood dream gave me the goofiest grin and even a giggle or two, so I’m sure other people walking along the beach thought I was just another one of the Venice crazies. Sometimes I feel like I’ve won the "Life Lottery", even though I’ve had my share of heartache.
I love the film "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" because it celebrates all the beautiful moments that are intertwined with painful experiences and tragedies, which so often get lost in our hearts and minds over time. We look back at a bad breakup or divorce, and think only of the reasons why the relationship did not work, instead of at first feeling thankful for all the love that was once shared. At the end of the film, the two main characters have an opportunity to move forward with their lives without the memories of each other, and therefore without the memories of their bitter breakup. Instead they choose to go through the whole thing again, because they know that even though their relationship did not ultimately work, they had many wonderful moments in the meantime – memories beautiful enough that they were willling to accept the pain that would inevitably follow. What heartache, failure or tragedy would you be willing to experience all over again for the sake of all the beauty and joy that accompanied the pain? I believe these experiences may be the most valuable and precious – memories for which any pain we may have gone through as a result of them feels totally worth it. Memories where, in the end, the GOOD outweighs the BAD.
I try to look at every life experience as simply lessons, especially mistakes, and I have made some GRAND MISTAKES. There is no finality "getting there" or "making it" in life – there is only a continuation of moments and experiences that are in and of themselves what life is all about.
