Perspective -- Negative Space

I was enjoying a beautiful Chicago afternoon. The sun was out and a nice breeze came through making it comfortable to sit outside on the patio at Cafe Ba Ba Reeba. I was having a wonderful conversation and just catching up. The red sangria was tasty and refreshing especially after a long walk along Lake Michigan. Each little detail reminded me of trips taken to Spain and Italy in the past year: people enjoying their afternoon, eating good food, the tasty bread with olive oil, the smell of the lamb and ribs, the romantic combination of smoky bacon and sweet dates, and the big giant jamon legs just hanging right over the bar welcoming the guests.

My dinner companion and I got a little sad because we were basically in denial that the summer was pretty much over. Both of us just started grad school and we wondered how there were people on the other side of the Atlantic lucky enough to live a relaxed lifestyle while we were slaving away here in the land of results, efficiency, and productivity.

Why are we always looking at what we don't have instead of what we are lucky enough to have? Perhaps it's time to be more grateful for what we get instead of what other people have? Ever wonder that God knows what you deserve? And He feels what you have been given is what you are honestly ready to handle right now?

In art class, we were working on negative space. It's when you look at the space outside of the object instead of the form of the object. I straight up can't stand doing it. My classmates over the summer also struggled with it, and my former teacher almost threw a hissy fit because we all sucked at it. I think she almost threw a chair at us. I blocked that part out of my mind.

My shoulders tensed up when we started drawing the negative spaces around a step ladder and random bamboo stick. My teacher came around and told me to slow down. He encouraged me to really examine the shapes coming around the objects. I just wanted to rush through it because I found the exercise reminded me of those unpleasant days in the past. If I'm not immediately grasping a concept, I'm ready to move on to something else. Or if something made me unhappy in the past, I sometimes just shut down and don't want to re-visit that terrible memory. Yeah, I know, it's not the most mature way to handle things.

Then, we moved on to an exercise where we had to take on the letters of our name. He told us to twist the letters, examine the form of the letters, and make it abstract. I couldn't do it. In my job, I am asked to make images and words meaningful and relevant. I kept on trying to make my name recognizable.

My art teacher and classmates did a walk-around. It was pretty obvious that I missed the point of the assignment. All the other kids had these cool elaborate symbols. I wanted to blurt out,"Well yeah, but I can't see the letters or their freakin' name! I could have made some shit up too. Plus, they aren't even using negative space." But, our teacher wanted us to focus on making a beautiful, abstract drawing and eventually later find the letters in the piece that made out our name. I told him that in my job I'd get in trouble if I made something that required an explanation. That clarity, relevance, and logic are important. It was so hard to break through my boundaries.

This morning, I started to doodle, and in the jumble of letters, I started to trip out! I could see something emerging like the cannabis-induced vision of an ant colony that comes out of the tile on your kitchen floor. I could see a human figure coming out of the letters: a head and some arms and legs! Eventually, I saw a beautiful woman in the letters standing proud and tall and graceful. It dawned on me that I just had to think creatively and push myself. Instead of pouting or stomping my feet about how much this sucked or felt pointless, I just realized that I had to be open and walk away from the harshness and rules I relied on so much.

I close this entry from Sarah Ban Breathnach's "Simple Abundance":
"We've got the big picture but it's backwards. So we cry when we should be laughing, are envious when we should feel inspired, experience deprivation instead of abundance, do it the hard way instead of the easy way, pull back instead of reaching out. And worst of all, we close our hearts so we won't get hurt, when opening them is the only way we'll ever know joy.

How many times have we waited for [the] Spirit to move for us when in fact [the] Spirit is waiting to work with us?

Today take the negative of your Divine Plan and let Love develop so that you can begin living the life for which you were created. It's time to move forward."