"Winter Sunset", oil on primed masonite, by Heidi Malott

ROOM FOR ANYTHING

     I hope to keep in mind today that there’s ample room in life for

whatever happens. So often I get the feeling that my life is a fairly small and cramped enclosure, with little available space for unexpected events. I have lived most of my years as though existence was a one-room apartment, necessarily filled with defense mechanisms and surrounded by sentries. I’ve felt, I guess, that I could handle only so much (and not much, at that), and any additional occurrences must be kept at bay.

     I now know that this is an entirely inaccurate view of life, and today I want to keep the truth front and center in my mind. Life is, in fact, infinite. There are no starting points, walls, boundaries, limits, or finish lines. Existence is like a sky that doesn’t start anywhere and doesn’t end anywhere – a “place” that has room for every possible person, object, situation, or event. What I call “me” is simply an ever-changing feature of this endless sky of life – a feature that swirls and transforms together with countless others. None of these are “good” or “bad”, “constructive” or “destructive”; they are just parts of the always shifting phenomenon we call life. No matter what happens today – triumph or disaster, celebration or sorrow – there’s more than abundant room for it. In the sky above us, all clouds float freely, coming and going, and so will all that happens today.