What We Are Made of is Unbreakable

​"What We are Made of is Unbreakable" - mixed media on gallery wrapped canvas, 30" x 40" x 1.5".  Ready to hang.  Available here and at Artfinder.

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How I have cried over spilled milk! And cracked pots, dented car doors and fried hard drives.  I've cried over jammed fingers, bee stings, broken bones and surgery.  I have sobbed over the loss of parents, the pain of a struggling child and the suffering of aging pooches.  I've cried with sorrow, cried with fear and shed a bucket of tears over loss.  But at some point, "we can be healed by the paradox that while life at times feels unbearable, what we are made of is unbreakable." (Mark Nepo)

What We are Made of is Unbreakable

Now this is surely an ironic quote to connect with, given this girl has the spine of a dried flower in a stampede of wildebeest.

And yet - I am not broken  Not broken by the milk or the surgery or the loss.  Ok, deflated, agonized, irritated, depressed, angry, upset and crabby - but not broken.

It isn't what I intended, that puddle of (macadamia nut) milk.  I didn't intend for that bee to sting me.  Never intended for my children to be hurt (by anything or anyone) or for a long line of tail-wagging best friends to come to the end of their lives.  And we never intend to lose the ones we love.  But Nepo (you knew this was coming, didn't you?) has an answer for that: "This inevitable struggle between what we intend and what life provides is how we apprentice in the art of acceptance."    

No hold on a gosh-darned minute!  I don't recall signing up for this particular apprenticeship.  It's like the "P-word" (patience) all over again.  Sigh.  Sometimes life provides lemons,  And sometimes it is raw onions, which makes lemons look like candy.   And Pongo would eat either one with glee, so who am I to complain?