“Remember that there is meaning beyond absurdity. Know that every deed counts, that every word is power... Above all, remember that you must build your life as if it were a work of art.” – Abraham Heschel
Twice each week I travel to Toronto for the work I do, spending time with the aging. This journey takes me by car and then by subway train. I choose to travel part of the way on the subway because it is quicker and alleviates the challenge of finding parking in the tight city streets. Each time I go, there are challenges and stories I see all around me waiting to be evaluated and weighed by my outlook on this life I am living. How I choose to review this artwork is up to me. Being a watcher, observer, and a person in the moment I enjoy each step on my journey.
Some days as I get on the subway, and look around for a place to sit, I see the most interesting things. Remnants of lives left behind, lives being lived out on the train, right there in front of my very eyes. Some days I see abandoned newspapers, coffee cups, and personal items. Other days I see emotions, obscurity and empty vessels walking about or I see the faces of those not on the train, but somewhere else in the world as they video chat with a friend. On occasion I see a lumpy white sheet on the bench with a tuft of curly hair sticking out the top and hear snoring. I am very careful not to paint the picture of this person’s life based on the snapshot I see. It would be easy, one step at a time, to map out this person’s life into a neat assessment based on my assumptions. Easy to wrap their life up into a package of facts and happenings to bring them here and now, when in truth I know absolutely nothing about them.
Some days when I get on the train, I am one of many and other days I could roll a bowling ball down the length of the long hall and never knock down a soul. It is like living life in a picture, the same canvas each time yet the landscape so different. Like our four seasons, life in spring, summer, fall and winter. Each person like leaves. Some are budding, some are falling, some in full bloom and some in flower. This trunk of life, weaving its way underground to its destination, carrying pieces and parts of the whole.
What if we lived our lives on a canvas, dancing with paint on our feet? Paint without the “t” is pain…so we take our pain and tick it off, test it out, and cross it and with temerity (boldness, excessive confidence, audacity) live life in trials. What if each day we painted a new picture to place in our gallery? I know I trust each day to be the only day I have, as yesterday is already displayed and tomorrow is yet to be experienced. As I watch, look, and perceive the world around me, I do it with curiosity and wonder as opposed to judgment and fear. It is my choice to live life however I choose. One step at a time. Working with those who exist in a very different world than my own has taught me it is how we see the world that makes it exist because there is no reality except for the one we create and view.
As I look at the sleeping person on the subway or those standing with signs on the curbside or observe those in $5,000 dresses or suits, sipping champagne and peering from the windows of their jets or limousines, I take a moment to remember we all come from the same source and this success, performance and achievement are only the painting of today’s canvas. When we observe the great remembered people like Gandhi, Mohammad, Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Mandela, Mother Teresa, to name only a few, they are remembered for what they stood for not their success, performance, or achievements. They are remembered because they touch in us the very divine spark of humanity to be loving and caring. To live each day with our lives as a blank canvas waiting to be painted upon with the pain of each step, we take caring for the world and everything in it. Their work is a constant reminder that if you have the choice to be right or to be kind, choose kind every time. No one boasts on their memorial stone “here lies a person who was right 1,498,338 times!” When asked, most people want to be remembered for their kindness and love, their heart, and their soul, not their success, performance or achievements.
How often we see a successful, highly driven person with great achievement talk about how money is not important. Most will respond by saying “when you have money that is easy to say!” and dismiss their lessons they are speaking about which is once they had success, performance, and achievement they realized how empty life can be.
I love my opportunity to paint into my canvas a couple of times each week some different scenery than what I am used to. As I work with people whose pictures and paint are very different than mine, I appreciate the great steps I take to be in the moment both living and looking through a different lens. As I return journey on the train, the new painting from my morning is a frame in the movie, a picture to be hung on the wall of my gallery. I commit it to memory carefully, so to not miss a stroke as every detail is important.
May the steps of your journey be taken one at a time like a stopped escalator, with purpose and with a little pain(t). Taken at a pace where you can find your kindness for others and be the ray of sunshine you need in the world. Remember the sun shines in your heart and nothing can cover it with cloud or darkness unless you let it. Paint rainbows from your storms and full moons in the skies of the dark nights of the soul. Remembering, if you need help doing any of this you always know where to find me.
Cynthia Breadner is a grief specialist and bereavement counsellor, a soul care worker and offers specialized care in Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy with special attention as a cognitive behavioral therapy practitioner and trauma incident resolution facilitator. She volunteers at hospice, works as a LTC chaplain and is a death doula, assisting with end-of-life care for client and family. She is the mother part of the #DanCynAdventures duo and practices fitness, health and wellness. She is available remotely by safe and secure video connections, if you have any questions contact her today!
