Depending on the light, now you see it/me, now you don't

  

With the second scrim and the stage floor painted, my work is done. Now the curtain needs to be hung and I will attend the rehearsal next week to see the effects. It's quite fun working for the theater- such crazy goofy dramatic folks... and it is all about the art of illusion. Supposedly, with the right light, this painting will disappear. I feel as though I might disappear too.
When I look at my life in one light, I see that all I do 45 hours a week is teach kids to paint...present, sell, cajole, wheedle, demand, encourage, push, coddle and applaud. Of the five classes in a day, two this week are painting botanically in the school garden, another one (because four claim to be afraid of butterflies and one is allergic to bees) is painting copies of medieval woodcuts, another is learning how to make egg tempera paint and studying the industrial revolutions impact on color pigment, and the last is using all their skills to render glass objects in pencil. I came home last night and, sitting still for a moment, saw that I had accidentally spray painted my feet green while working on the scrims. Green toes look awful. Fascinatingly awful. Like a zombie maybe. I felt like a zombie!
If you look at my life in another light you see I am an artist with a job that pays me to be creative and use my talents. I have moments filled with good books, food, love, silence. I might not paint paintings like I used to, but it still counts that I can see and think and express myself.
Not sure if this makes any sense, but I exist in the second light. I hardly know myself in the first! That might be because I am stretching and growing. It is exhausting. But I shouldn't complain.
Ohhh, the drama!