It Can't Be "Myself" Any Longer

Anyone who knows me knows I do alot of painting and drawing. Someone today told me that I paint "feelings." That meant alot to me because I can't paint or draw something when I'm not "feeling" it.

This is a little different.

It's a picture I took standing under the old Oak tree on Crosby-Cedar Bayou Lynchburg where it curves to go to the Ferry. It's been awhile since I took this, as the tree was fenced off the last time I passed there. Because of my love for history, and Texas, I've always loved this photo and the water at sunset. It brings out alot of feelings and I have always wanted to paint it, but never got around to it. I decided a few weeks ago to add it to my store as a print. So I did.

This morning I woke up to an order for a large print and a message. The buyer was very enthusiastic and said the following:

"Did you take this photo yourself? I grew up there, and this really hit home. Literally. Exactly where did you take this?
Lakewood? Brownwood? (Baytown Nature Preserve, now) It's beautiful!"

I wrote her back and told her the story of the photo and she sent me this:

"Thank you for the point of reference. I was born in Brownwood. My parents lost everything in hurricane Carla, so in 1967 we moved to Lakewood. I lost my parents a decade ago, and recently, my husband and 2 siblings. I have been looking for something that hit "home". This was hit the mark. I have been trying to get my grandkids to Baytown Nature Preserve for photos with monument in the background. I am excited to have shots of them framed with this as a centerpiece! Thank you so much!"

I'm sharing this because I had kept this photo to myself for a long time. That's the key word... "myself." I have spent most of my life keeping things to myself, in all kinds of ways. But that also means keeping JOY to myself. If I had not shared this photo, really on a whim, this sweet lady would not have seen it and experienced the happiness you can read in her words.

That's where the "feelings" come in.

Those feelings are part of why I took the picture in the first place.

Now, when I look at it, I think about a woman I have never met who saw home in it. I think about her parents, her husband and siblings, her childhood in Brownwood and Lakewood, and the grandchildren whose pictures she plans to frame around it.

Something that meant something to me now means something to her, too.

Maybe that's part of the reason we're given talents in the first place. Not just so we can create things that mean something to us, but so that every once in a while, something we create can reach someone else exactly when they need it.

And I think there's a lesson in that for me — to stop keeping so much to myself.

The art. The feelings. The time. The things I can do for someone else.

Because you never know when something you've been keeping to yourself might be exactly what someone else has been looking for.