As winter departs, spring's bright colors, roaring winds and fresh new life surge around us. The snow melts, overcast skies clear, the sun rises earlier. We adapt to new temperatures, weather, angles of light, and soon we forget an entire season of our life. It's lost to memory. Yesterday’s reality becomes history. So we rise to opportunity and break new ground.
When we recall yesterday, an image usually rises from our vague fragmented recollections to help us make sense of our experience. The memory might be of an action we took or didn't take, a friend’s wry expression, a flash of insight while driving to work, a discovery, a sound, a feeling of peace, fear or purpose. Did we connect with our goal? Most of us have fewer specific recollections about yesterday than we have unanalyzed feelings about that recent past.
Three Ridges at the Snowline | Mark Roger Bailey
As for seasons, what about the winter recessing in your rearview mirror will you recall next week, next season or next decade? What about this winter's short, brilliant days and long shadowed nights will define it in your memory?
Start there. Process what meant most yesterday, then tackle today. Don't overthink it, recognize what mattered most, and invest it in today.
Does your latest artwork-in-progress resonate? Does it capture the meaning you intended? Probably not yet. It will come.
Next week, when a crisis emerges, what if anything will we recall about our response to this image?
Tomorrow, when we're getting traction on the next challenge, what should we think about our exchange today?
Start here, now, with your thought or feeling that rose above the others about our departing winter. Our minds retain ideas and events that intersect with emotional, physical or psychological needs in the folds of our brain as latent memory. Later, it can manifest unexpectedly. We may not recognize its origin, yet that dispatch from the front lines of our experience is telling us something that our subconscious believes is important. That conscious connection may seem random, yet in my experience, it is often a clue to a core concept. Yesterday's topline memory becomes a takeaway, a suggestion for a course correction if I am aware enough to act on it.
Takeaways are powerful starting points.
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View my Shoreline Collection and please stop by my Gallery Shop to consider a special series of signed and numbered limited-edition prints for the collector. A haunting perspective of shore life or a miniature print of a tall ship would make a wonderful gift for yourself or a thoughtful surprise for a friend.