Winter Tree

It's winter here and 63 degrees with sun....for the fourth week in a row.  Weird.  As nice as the sunshine is, it feels more like spring rather than winter in the Bay Area.   I do hope we get more rain soon since we need it.

My drawing today was trying to depict how interesting a tree looks in winter. Without leaves, you notice the branches more distinctly against the sky.  Also, the shadows and shapes of the branches look more eerie - even on a sunny day.

I read somewhere where it's good to hang out with kids under 7 and adults over 75.  I see how this is so.  I often babysit my 3 year old twin nieces who definitely take my mind off myself and help me to focus on living in-the-moment.  If it's not one niece crying on my lap getting tears all over me because she didn't like to be told not to draw all over the dining room table with crayons, it's the other niece laughing and chanting silly made-up words or funny sentences like "he said 'butt' instead of 'boat'" (referring to a line in the movie Finding Nemo).  All these little mini-moments make up their entire day!  The attention span of a 3-year old lasts about 2 minutes, so just when I get an art project all set up and we start to draw for a few minutes, they suddenly want to paint their nails.  Then after I paint the right hand nails, they jump up and want to play dress up in the next room without letting their nails dry or even finishing painting the nails on their other hand.

I realize adults don't work this way, but when we get the opportunity to hang out for periods of time with in-the-moment little kids, we can stop thinking about the email we must check, or work we must do.  Instead, we can take a deep breath, sit on the ground to play and laugh, get tired from going a mile a minute from one thing to another, and then look back on that day as being more fun than we expected. In fact - it may be just this kind of day that brings us back to our true selves.  Here's to the young soul that is hiding inside of you!