I recently spent a weekend with a group of friends, many I have had for 30+ years. It’s an annual girl’s trip that we look forward to each year. We shop, we eat, WE LAUGH, we cry and the last few years we have done some crafts! Now, doing a “craft” makes us sound either 4 or old - HA! However, our “crafts” serve important purposes. Plus, doing crafts after a glass or two of wine and with hydrating/moisturizing masks on our faces is always a good time!
Last year we all painted little ceramic gnomes for one of the girls - she needed them for her flowerbeds! We also made lip scrub and bath salts as one of our ladies found the idea on “the google.” This year we decorated frames for our “family picture” we always take AND we painted!
The painting idea came to me as I was watching a HGTV show and saw where all the people working on the house stopped one afternoon and painted their version of the house they were redoing. At the end of the show they had a wall of canvases all depicting the house. It was the same house, yet each one was so different! THIS WAS IT! This was going to be our craft! We were going to paint the lake house - Pace Point!
For the last 28 years we have spent a weekend at my parent’s lake house. It is such a wonderful place. So many memories have been made there - not just by these ladies - but my family and many others. This house means so much to so many different people! Just pulling in the gate, driving down the winding road and pulling up to the house makes my heart happy! It’s a beautiful house and has seen its share of updates and improvements, but the way it has always felt to me has been the same. It makes me smile!
I took a picture my mom had of the front of the cabin, copied it and passed it out to the group. We all had a canvas and paint. One of the ladies was in charge of the music and we started jamming out to the best of the 60s, 70s and 80s music. As we belted out Don’t Stop Believing and Lean on Me our masterpieces started to emerge! They were fantastic! Each one was different and really had a different focus! It was funny to me because we were each looking at the same picture….. But we all had different visions!
Isn’t that like life! Many of us can be viewing the same picture or in the same situation, but we “look at it” differently. We might see something beautiful, while someone else will find a flaw. Some might see a glimmer of love from something and someone else in the same room will be triggered to find hate.
Our viewpoints define who we are. They depict our feelings of love and our fears we’ve gained throughout our lives. But that’s ok! It’s ok to look at the same things as someone else from different viewpoints - that’s what makes the world go round, right? We just need to be appreciative and respectful of people who might not see something the same as us! We learn this way. While teaching, I learned so much from my students' point of views - they would see things differently than I would for various reasons. It made me stop and to understand them better. I am glad I didn't just get angry because they looked at things differently than I did!
Our (the ladies of GGA - girls get-away) paintings ended up just perfect! We all were looking at the same picture, but each one was unique. The smile that my mother had on her face when she saw them said it all! I cannot wait to see how she displays them on the wall.
How do you handle it when someone looking at the same life picture as you, sees it differently? Do you get offended? Do you ask them why and try to understand? Remember no one has the exact same life, so everyone’s masterpiece and view of it will be different! Embrace it! Isn't this what life is all about?