Every Day is a New Beginning
Photograph from “Hello My Name is Paul Smith” exhibit at Tate Modern, London, England 2013
Seven years ago I visited the Tate Modern museum on a trip to London where my favorite British clothing designer, Paul Smith, was having an exhibition. One room in the gallery housed a wall full of his special photographs and paintings. When I saw the poster above, nestled in between pictures of David Bowie and bicycles, I paused, nodded in agreement, and then took this picture.
People who snap pictures of pictures remind me of those who take photographs of zoo animals. Does anyone ever look back at those pictures and gaze at them in amazement? Embarrassingly, I guess I do, because often after a hard day I remember this particular picture, of a picture. I have found it timely in difficult moments such as now, when we find ourselves living through a global pandemic.
One of the greatest feelings in the world is to go to bed with a heavy heart and wake up light.
When the band U2 sang, “You've got stuck in a moment, and now you can't get out of it. Don't say that later will be better. Now you're stuck in a moment, and you can't get out of it,” I can definitely understand. Some days I swear that the emotions that wrap around me like a cumbersome cloak will always remain. I am convinced I will feel tomorrow exactly how I feel today.
However, there are nights that catch me off-guard where my preconceived intuition ends up backfiring on me, and I wake up feeling better and more hopeful. Like a gift left unexpectedly at my front door step, I love those days.
You see, sometimes I like things that don’t make much sense. They remind me that I don’t have everything figured out. They remind me that the mystery of life still remains.
Days like this show me that “Every day has a new beginning.” Nine out of ten times I might wake up still heavy from whatever was plaguing me from the day before, but on that precious rare occasion, something wonderful happens: my problems don’t go away, they are just more bearable to handle. My outlook has been altered, my hope has increased, and I see things a little differently.
This week as my county reopened from the Covid-19 stay-at-home mandate (even though the numbers across the nation of confirmed cases continue to rise), I was anxious of the new, yet familiar routine. Not knowing what it would be like to go back to work with so many precautions in place, I feared the unknown. When the pandemic started and we transitioned to staying home, I was apprehensive of that new way of living. But now that my routine had become familiar and safe to me, I was nervous to get out of the house, remember to social distance correctly, and not forget to sanitize work equipment, all while wearing a mask. Thankfully as the week went on, my anxiety dissipated.
Friend, do not give up.
Whether you are discouraged by your current circumstance, your health, your relationships, or your habits, every day may not feel like a new beginning, but it is. Some mornings you might awaken feeling just as bad as the night before. But once in a while you may lay your discouraged head down on your pillow, but when you rise, your eyes may be lifted upward with a burning in your heart that there is hope.
Today is not the day to tell you to get out and accomplish your goals, to start things anew. Today is not a time to tell you that you can “just do it,” that the world is your oyster.
Instead, today is a day to tell you to not give up.
If you believe that tomorrow will be exactly like today, do not give up.
If you have lost your ambition to become a better person, do not give up.
If you feel anxious about everything in your life right now, do not give up.
If you can’t stop crying, do not give up.
If you want to eat all the snacks and drink all the wine, do not give up.
If you feel emotionally and physically exhausted, do not give up.
You never know when you will wake up and experience the new beginning that every day has to offer.
In the middle of a street in Southeast Portland.