Capturing a Moment

 "How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand... oh how do you keep a wave upon the sand?"

-lyrics from the Sound of music (How do you solve a problem like Maria?)

How do you mark a moment in time? How do you capture a step in the journey?

I think art is a good way of noticing details and giving thanks. We watch the lamb and calves feed off each other's joy every day, they spring off the ground in vertical leaps of joy. The dog wags her tail and wishes she could join but thinks a cattle herder is too serious in business for play. The dog is missing out.

I want to draw the lamb hopping in glee one of these days and then I want to paint it. I want to do a whole session of paintings on leaping for joy.

I also want to paint a close up of the calf I've been bottle feeding. He has the longest blackest sweep of eyelashes and the cutest curls on his forehead. He's a big clumsy oaf though and so I call him Monster. He falls off the porch probably ten times a day and looks as silly as everything. When we start up the quad he runs for the bush in pretend fright. At bottle feeding time his grumbling stomach always bring him back to the humans habitation and the porch where the humans are seen.

Art requires free time that I don't always have. Taking a photograph sometimes helps me recall the moment but it's even more amplified if I try to recreate the texture of the picture with emotion added. I can improvise and change while i sketch to add my view of the moment, how I felt and what I saw. It feels like I discover and appreciate more details if I'm thinking about how to replicate shapes and colours.

I like how thinking about capturing the beauty in my life helps me be more grateful. I can focus on the joy of my children and the fun of all these spring babies even though in reality we're building a fence to hold them because I'm tired of bottle calves following us to the house and sleeping on the porch. They also make things fall off the grill tables and suck on shoes or use the porch as a bathroom when they start thinking about food.

I'll just keep noticing and marking moments of gratitude whenever I have time. When I don't have time to draw it I'll store it in photos or a quick sketch to redraw later. I shall leap vertically into the air for joy of being alive because everything can't be all horizontal duties and responsibilities.

I can literally jump for joy. I tried it. I was walking back from giving water to the dogs and the lamb followed at my heels and suddenly broke out in her springing run like a pogo stick on four legs. "Let's copy her," I called across the yard to my daughter. It was great fun and we laughed hard when we got to the house. Why walk when you can leap?

Touch the moonbeams, ride the waves, pet the lambs, run with the calves...life is transient and every special moment needs a monument of gratitude.