Marking the Moment: The Red Salamander
I was about a third of the way through my running route. It was one of those days when the sun was streaming through the trees, warming me just enough as the crisp air rushed by me. That point in the run where you feel so alive! My mind was always searching in those days, planning. Had I done the right thing? And what was next? Quitting not just a job, but a career — I'd thought about it for so long. Now it was here, and it was everything I wanted and also mentally very difficult to navigate.
I was picking up speed, flying down the hill and around the corner. I felt a building sense of satisfaction, and then pure elation and peace. It was like I could see all of the hard things and all of the good things woven together in a perfect tapestry that made complete sense, and I was just floating on clouds down the path. As I took a deep breath to savor this feeling, I glanced down. A bright red salamander caught my eye!
It skittered out of the grass and onto the path right in front of me. I had never seen a salamander this bright, or even a salamander at all in the park. It was so surprising that I knew it was a sign, a marker for me to remember this exact moment, and how I felt, and to keep coming back to this place in my mind. Because of that marker, I can still remember exactly where I was on the path, and I think about it every time I'm out there.
When I cross that spot —
I can feel it again like it's happening now.
That red salamander moment on the path was 3 or 4 years ago.
Cut to last week, I was in my studio, and wandered down the hall to a gallery opening for a fabric artist. She was going to be giving a talk, and I love hearing what's behind the art someone makes, and just wanted to support her.
Well, I wasn't in there two minutes before a piece on the back wall drew me in like a magnet. It was alive! And it was framed in colors that speak to me, colors I have repeated throughout my own home.
As I listened to her talk, I could not take my eyes off it. Although I hadn't planned on buying any art for the house for a while, and it wasn't necessarily in the budget, my brain started working on how I could own this piece. It was already mine.
Then I remembered a little savings account I'd started years ago for fun — it began as a way to curb my Starbucks addiction. Every time I wanted something on impulse and I was able to resist — a latte, a little something at the checkout — I'd put half of what it would have cost into the account. It had been quietly gaining interest. I hadn't looked at it in a while, so I checked — and it had just over the price of the work! In the next minute I was down at the front desk, happily making the purchase.
As the checkout paperwork was being completed, I glanced down, feeling a sense of brightness and calm. A feeling that forcing and trying doesn't work, but that allowing things to come to you in their own time can be better than anything you could have orchestrated yourself. Well, there on the counter were a bunch of tiny glass animals, selling for five dollars each. One of them just leapt out at me…
Yep, a red salamander! I'm telling you, it looked exactly like the one on the path! I walk past that front desk just about every day, and I have never seen a red salamander there. Of course, I bought the little guy too! And then we went up to the gallery and stuck the red dot on my new piece of artwork: It was mine!
It's so easy, as the tasks accumulate throughout our days, and the world puts so much noise and clutter in front of our faces, to forget about those moments. That feeling that everything is just as it should be…it's so real at the time, but it's elusive.
So how do we hang onto it?
Grow it, expand it, live in that space for a just a little while longer?
I think the key is a creative and curious mindset, one that is open to possibilities. It's not that someone put the red salamander there just for me, or that the salamander knew what it was doing and wanted to tell me something, but that my awareness was open and ready.
I can't make a red salamander show up every time I'm feeling good. And anyway, it would lose its meaning if that happened! What I can do is move toward a life that serves that state of being: curious, seeking creative connection and grateful for the beauty of this sometimes chaotic, messy world. I can't change the chaos, but I can tune into the frequency where I appreciate the totality of it all. And isn't that what it's about anyway? Finding peace and understanding as we move through our days, our lives?
So, here's to staying open, ready, and humble to what can present itself to us if we're willing to live in the flow.
With Enthusiasm for Art & Life,