Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear,
But around in awareness.
– James Thurber
I love this quote! One of my favorite quotes of all time, I wanted to capture it on paper and bring the meaning alive.
This is my third quote splat… just a weekly series of fun, silly, low-key illustrations that I splat onto the page in just a few minutes, off the cuff, to accompany my favorite quotes.
To illustrate the “looking back in anger” I painted the left side of the paper red and filled it up with words… gibberish… chattering away angrily and filling up our lives with unimportant things like blame and guilt and anger.
To the right, I illustrate looking “forward in fear” by using a vague, uncertain grey color and likewise, filled it up with useless brain chatter about the what ifs and unknowns and fears that crowd out our experience of The Now.
In the center, I use vintage sheet music and cut it in an hourglass shape, showing the joy and the music and beauty available to us if only we can stay in the present moment. Although the present moment is ever-changing, we can dance along with it, as time marches on, so that all of our joyful moments string together and create one wonderful lifetime.
The soul in the middle has a choice. We all have a choice. By looking around in awareness, we can find the beauty in the now, in this one grain of sand that falls in the present moment.
I’m going to try to string together a bunch of wonderful “now” moments throughout my day today… and I appreciate Thurber for giving me this thought to contemplate and carry with me. xoxo