The Red Bridge

So maybe it doesn’t look like a bridge to you.

It didn’t to me either, but that was the first thing my wife saw, and I liked that.

I just finished rereading The Legend of Bagger Vance by Stephen Pressfield (stay with me here) and there’s a lot in that book that isn’t about golf. In fact, the book isn’t really about golf at all, golf is just the vehicle for the meaningful stuff. I also found out that the book was based on the Bhagavad Gita.

There’s a lot of talk in the story about finding your authentic swing. And of course, your authentic swing is what you have to find in life, whether it’s your golf game, your painting game, your relationships, or your own spiritual journey.

I feel like I’ve been honing in on my authentic painting swing for the past year. I’ve come close in my career, but never as much as recently. And like Rannulph Junah, the protagonist in the story, I found it, then got in my head and lost it, and have come back to it now with greater understanding. I don’t find my painting path, my painting path finds me. And then I get out of the way and allow it to paint through me.

Kind of like getting on a ride at a theme park.

Oh, and the field of flowers or the bridge? It makes absolutely no difference. That’s head stuff that happens after the fact. I present the painting with a name that serves as an identifier, with some reference however tenuous, to the imagery so the title can be a useful tag.