I fall in love with everything all the time

Sometimes this makes me happy. Sometimes it makes me sad.

The world is full of wonders. Image from my Instagram.

Have you ever had a line of writing ignite a miniature fireworks explosion in your head?

That’s what happened to me when I read a particular sentence from

Brian Biggs

’ recent piece, a new point of view, which I came across because

Emily Charlotte Powell

shared it.

Here is the line:

As an artist, I fall in love with everything, all the time.

Straight to my heart like an arrow flying true, its feathered fletchings quivering from the impact.

🩶

I have been thinking about that line since I read it three days ago — rolling it around in my head where it snicks and clicks against all the other thought marbles taking up space in my brain. And yet, I’m still not sure what to say about it or why it struck me the way it did. I only know it feels very right. Like gravity.

Funny thing is, upon rereading Brian’s post, I realize his intended meaning does not match my gut interpretation. In the context of his essay, he’s talking about the way artists fall in love with their creations, making it difficult to make creative choices. But I read it to mean that artists fall in love with EVERYTHING, all the time — not just our creations, but the whole, wide world and everything in it.

I have been thinking a lot about art and artists lately. And about what it means to be an artist — a human one — in this age of endless “content” and generative AI.

It makes me smile to think of an artist as someone who falls in love with everything, all the time. After all, robots can’t fall in love.

🩶

Making art is an expression of love …

… of caring so much for something that you take the time to give it your full attention — to really know it — and to attempt to capture something of its essence in a drawing, a story, a song, or whatever form will allow you to present the object of your love to the rest of the world in such a way that they too fall in love.

Making art is an attempt to connect…

… even if only for a moment, with the creative magic that brings the universe to life. It’s like capturing lightning in a bottle, but — oh! — the feeling when you are able to tap into the flow.

🩶

I consider myself a lapsed, rather than practicing, artist.

But though I may not be actively pursuing any particular creative endeavors at the moment, I still experience the world as an artist. I notice things. I question things. And I find the world to be filled with marvelous wonders.

Often, the wonders are of the work of Mother Nature: an incandescent sunrise, the pale blue of an empty robin’s egg, a perfectly smooth beach pebble, the gorgeous arc of a rabbit’s bounding leap, the song of a catbird floating to me in the lingering dark of the early morning, kindness in the eye of an old horse.

Sometimes, the wonders are the work of other human beings — writers, illustrators, painters, photographers, sculptors, craftspeople, cartoonists, designers, musicians, actors, architects, gardeners, and anyone else who employs hand and heart to shape a little piece of the world into something they’ve dreamed about.

The world is also full of wonders that are more difficult to pin down — the joy of dancing, the comfort of warm sunshine on your back, the passion incited by a particular shade of blue, the enticing whisper of stories in a well-stocked bookstore.

🩶

I am drawn to works of art because they are beautiful to me, but also because they reflect the love of the artist who made them, which echoes my own love for the object of our shared affection. I see pieces of myself not only in the art, but in the artist, and that deep sense of connection warms my heart and comforts my soul.

You are not alone. You are never alone.

This feeling of connection is so important in times of trouble. The problem with loving everything all the time is that you can’t protect everything you love from the ravages of time, fate, or the harm caused by other humans. What you love can be hurt, lost, or taken from this world. The shadow of such tragedy is more easily borne when you know someone else shares your grief and — through love and art — remembers the joy of loving that little piece of the world.

Sometimes, it is your very love that is attacked. Sometimes, you are made to feel small or stupid or simple for loving something. You are ridiculed and demeaned by sad, lonely people whose own insecurities betray the cold, hard fact of their own longing to love something and to be loved in return.

Do not let them shame you into letting go of your love.

🩶

As an artist, I fall in love with everything, all the time. Sometimes this makes me happy. Sometimes it makes me sad. My heart often aches with the love I feel. It nearly bursts from the beauty of this world and everything and everyone in it. Most of the time, this ache is a low-level, tamped-down thrum that resonates just below the threshold of my conscious comprehension. But once in a while it leaps up from the depths to swamp me with Big Emotions, and I find that I am crying for no reason at all.

And then I fall in love all over again.