Dusk

I’ve been trying to go to Ocean Beach on Friday evenings to close out the week, and this piece is inspired by a moment after the sun had already set on one of those visits. 

Boundaries provide clarity, and I find clarity to be super comforting. I love knowing what I need to do, how I need to do it, and what success looks like. An example of boundaries I think about a lot comes from my classroom days: when I would assign a project to my students, I would typically also give them the rubric I’d be using to evaluate their work and an exemplar of what a high-quality finished product should look like. Teachers know that when we give these clear parameters for students, the quality of their finished products goes way up. When we know what the bar we’re reaching for looks like, we rise to it. 

The tricky part is that, when we have already defined what success looks like, the range of possible outcomes shrinks way down. The results we get will look closer to what we are hoping for, but we also run the risk of cutting off all the incredible possibilities that we haven’t thought of yet. 

Most of the time, when it comes to completing a discrete task - like the school project example- the efficiency that comes from clear boundaries far outweighs the loss of a wider range of possibilities. But when it comes to something bigger and messier,  like building a fulfilling life, the most efficient path often isn’t the richest.

30 x 40” acrylic on canvas, framed in solid wood