Between the "Not Anymore" and the "Not Yet" {30 Days of Gratitude In the Middle, FOR the Middle...No, Really!}

My definition of the "middle":

Being suspended - floating in grace - somewhere between the "not anymore" and the "not yet".

Always, the middle is the present moment.

I began making visual art just over a year and a half ago.  Making it has helped me deeply understand the art of words.  With paint, you just have to gather courage and start.  You have to throw some paint on that canvas.  Then, once you do that, you work (and work...and work...) with what is there.  You trust the process.  You trust that this present moment, this muddley-middle stage, will begin to take shape.  And the outcome is never what you first envisioned.

So it is with words.  A word-artist has to dig deep, and toss her heart onto a page, and work with what is there.  A writer has to trust that all this messy vulnerability will take shape into something beautiful for someone.

See, if I were to hate the transition stage, if I were to become overly uncomfortable with the middle, the finished product will have no soul - because I will compensate for my discomfort by forcing my version of perfection onto the piece.

All art is a product of love, and all artists must learn to embrace the middle, and feel gratitude for what is.  I am learning to thank God for living between the "not anymore" and the "not yet".  Where else can a girl practice her art of contentment?

Every moment is the present moment and must be sanctified by gratitude, else we risk losing the next present moment to that destroyer of the art that is your life - angst.