Rain showers early will evolve into a more steady rain overnight. Thunder possible. Low 67F. WNW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Rain showers early will evolve into a more steady rain overnight. Thunder possible. Low 67F. WNW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph. Chance of rain 90%.

What does it mean, “Life is Art?”

It means that whatever you do well makes you an artist in your trade. Anyone who takes pride in doing their job well, no matter what that work is, is a creator. Art is not restricted to being a painter, a sculptor, a photographer, a dancer, a musician, or an architect. You have a goal, and in order to accomplish it, you follow a pattern of steps, a choreography, in order to reach that goal. You may work alone or you may work with many people in order to reach that goal as gracefully and efficiently as possible. When you get there, you experience the same satisfaction as a conventional artist does. You may not see an actual visual that stimulates the previous, but your inner senses know what you have done and you experience the same satisfaction. Perhaps you kept someone safe that day, maybe you had to work through a really hot day and made it and got everything done, or maybe you made it through the day without losing your temper with a child. Then you move on to your next “painting.”

I have been thinking about this for a long time. What prompted me to write about it is a recent acute stay I had in Salem Hospital. To sum it up, it was a really bad week. But what I saw unfold before me as I was fighting for pain relief made it really clear to me that I moved through a very highly evolved set of steps involving dozens of people whose work is some of the most difficult of all, helping people get better, and they don’t usually start from the best “go.” The work is difficult because many times it begins with someone feeling miserable being helped by someone who feels well, and that gap is where the dance begins. I had a very long tag team and each step required some of the most creative choreography I have ever seen. The “well people,” first of all, must work very hard at staying well themselves, as long shifts and working through the night and the necessity of being totally on top of your game because you actually have the physical existence of your patient in your personal care, requires the utmost of attention. And they must do it whether they themselves feel well. I can put down my paintbrush, and pick it back up two days or a week later whenever I want, and no one is the worse off for it. Plus all the color of life is drained from this sort of environment, as more than one comment I heard was how nice it was to see flowers in a patient’s room. And I will never forget the moment, one week after admission, when I walked out into real daylight, how I was hit with the vividness of real life in nature, having been deprived of it for a while.

So let me, as a lifelong conventional artist, take a bow before all of you daily unconventional artists out there who dance to your own professional choreography.

To all of you at Salem Hospital who worked so very hard to make me well in all of your dances, I learned something from each and every one of you and I take my “hat” off to you.

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