“There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint  rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted.”

— Henri Matisse

When I open my eyes each morning, I like to lie in bed for a minute or two and just take in the wonder of a brand new day.  Each day we are offered a clean, white canvas; and it is up to us to decide what we will paint.  Certainly, life is not so cut and dried that yesterdays dilemmas all fade away in the dreams of night; but we are offered another chance, every time the sun rises, to gain perspective and start fresh at painting our day.

How often do we really take advantage of the gift of a new day?  Do we really mix new colors and stand before the canvas ready to focus on what truly is here and now, or do we linger on past hurts and disappointments that drab down our palette and wash gray over everything we paint?

Any artist who looks at a garden filled with roses and thinks, ‘if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all,’ will never succeed at painting a rose.  Any person who stands before the canvas of a brand new day and thinks, ‘how dull my life is, and it will never be anything but dull,’ will miss the splendor of discovering the gifts each day has to offer.  An artist cannot paint the love he has for a rose if he is remembering the thorn that stuck his finger a year ago.  We cannot fully engage with our life — right now, today — if we pass it through the past hurts and disappointments that are over.  We let them cling like burrs rather than taking the time to pull them off and throw them into the fire.  What we make of the gift of a new day will depend on what we bring to it when we open our eyes.

In order to paint a rose, the artist must invest her love and intention into the experience of seeing that unique flower as something extraordinary and new and beautiful.  Only then will the painting depict what truly is a rose.  In order to live the gift of a new day, we must invest our love and intention into every experience that comes our way.  Only then will we fall into bed at the end of the day and know that we truly are alive.