The prompt for Illustration Friday this week was Fleeting. 

That pissed me off.  Why?  Because everything pissed me off the past couple of days.  I blamed it on the moon, but in truth, I was just being a miserable ol’ wretch who needed some breathing space.  Inhale, Exhale, is all.  Ah.  That’s better! 

So today was scheduled “me” day.  (Always a nice Hercules knee-jerk reaction to my occasional–yes, occasional!–crabby phases.)  My agenda was: 1. browse antique store for hankies.  2.  hit fiber store to touch wooly stuff.  3.  sit next to a river and be enlightened, Siddharta-style.  4.  doodle and paint with ink on new (expensive) piece of hot-pressed watercolor paper (the main event!).  5.  Wal-Mart (cringe) for Easter candy.

I could not find my new paper.  This made me cry and throw things.  I inhaled, exhaled, and grabbed sketch paper instead. 

I made it, without incident, to number 4 on my agenda.  (Enter crazy lady in van down by the river talking to self.)  Doodle.  Play.  Fleeting.  Ugh.  I hate creativity prompts.  As if I can’t come up with a theme on my own!  Fight the system!  But I couldn’t stop thinking the word.  Fleeting.

Just before I left, Hercules had learned that his uncle had passed away.  Fleeting was heavy on my mind.  Old, decaying leaves blew past me, and my mind was dark, morbid, and what’s-the-point-everything-dies-and-I-can’t-find-my-new-paper.  But I drew anyway, and in the mindfulness of drawing, with the birds and the leaves and the water rushing past me, my thoughts resolved.  “Fleeting” evolved, in this drawing, from a depressing impermanence to an enlightening, cyclical transience.

This, too, shall pass, floated around in my head, weightless and subtle.  I contemplated the fleeting nature of the seasons–darkness to light, death to life.  It was only later that I realized how timely a  thought this was, the day before Easter.  And so, despite myself, I cheered up (dammiCK.), and braced myself for a last-minute Wal-Mart Easter candy run.