The first half of this week has gone by in a flurry of feverish painting and furious school-doing. I started a painting on Monday that kind of swallowed me whole, so I've been catching up on school, as well as touching up that painting since then.
I began it with the intention of giving it to a friend of mine, but then got to where I liked it too much to give it away. As I was touching it up, however, I realized that the picture I had created was an animate representation of a dream that belongs to my friend. Not my dream, hers. And that made me really happy. Then the words Carpe Diem popped into my head. Like out of nowhere. Seize the day, I thought. Seize the day. This was a picture of my friend seizing the day: living her dream. How awesome is that? I'm going to paint pictures for some of my other friends too, pictures of them living their attainable dreams. Who knows? Maybe one of them will motivate a friend to take action and make it happen. (I decided to title the paintings Carpe Flippin' Diem, adding the flippin' to balance out my surfacing memory of two years of unadulterated, despicably brutal Latin translations).
All this got me to thinking about whether or not I do seize the days I am given. If I knew today was the last sunny day of the week would I be outside, basking in it's otherworldly luminescence? If I knew that tomorrow I was going to become paralyzed from the waist down, would I go for a hike right now? What if I learned that I have a month left to live? Would that reveal to me new beauties in my everyday life? Once I died, would I look back and see thousands of missed oppurtunities to show love, reach out, help, and be helped?
If I don't take a spontaneous camping trip half way across the country now, will I ever?
If I make up an excuse to avoid helping people today, will I always ignore others?
Will I ever give, if I don't now?
Will there be a better time than the present?
If not now, then when?

I don't want to look back and see what wasn't; how can any of us like the idea of looking back and seeing a life full of beauties wholly taken for granted? As far as I can tell, all real rewards spring from getting involved in stuff, living life with others, and taking advantage of everything wonderful that comes our way.

So Carpe Flippin' Diem, and seize the heck out of your day.


Lydia