A Beautiful Mess

I have a longstanding date. Every afternoon once the little man is tucked in bed and before our budding artist is down for some quiet time, she and I splash some color on the canvas and enjoy silly conversations and quite a few giggles. We began to notice awhile back that Natalie was pretending everything was a paintbrush, everything needed to be painted.

After purchasing some paints and small brushes it was clear she is very artistic. Her artwork is just like her personality; bold, colorful, uninhibited. Whereas I neatly pour circles of color in rows on the tray and carefully outline a bird or a flower on the paper, Natalie swirls the colors together with abandon, paying no attention to order and splashes globs and blobs of color all over my neat rows of blooms.
At first I felt a little frustrated, longing to show her how to be patient and work slowly till she created the picture in her mind, work carefully with one color at a time, don't paint over a well drawn picture. It was hard to keep my mouth shut when she would lean laughing on my knee, paintbrush slopping all over my pants to whisper in my ear or show me an idea. I was hard pressed not to watch the clock, willing the timer to sound for quiet in our home, when I could clean up the mess and order would return.

And then it hit me. It is a mess to me but to her it is beautiful. "Isn't that wonderful Mom?", she asked me, gesturing towards an unrecognizable smear of browns and blues and lilacs. "See what I did?" And to her it was wonderful. Beautiful. A beautiful mess. While I was concerned with cleaning and neatness she was enjoying the experience. Not worrying what came next or how it would all turn out. Enjoying every minute.

As I thought more about it the painting looked a lot like my life. Swirling through the days, a punch of color here, add some exciting events, a little mundane housework and billpaying, glop on a little marital tension and late nights and you've got yourself a mess.

That is if you leave out the moments of breathless wonder as our boy strings a sentence together or learns to run, or the belly laughs when Natalie does crazy somersaults down the hallway, or still getting butterflies when my husband takes my hand or gives me tiny kisses all over my face. Those things are what makes the mess beautiful. Most beautiful of all because a Master painter is at work and to my great relief he isn't finished yet.