I posted this on my MySpace page tonight, but I thought I'd put it here too.

I have a print of a painting by the Maine artist Andrew Wyeth hanging up in my house.  The painting is called "Christina's World."  I first learned of this painting from an old Reader's Digest my dad had.  I was looking at this picture a little bit ago, and it struck me to write a quick blog on it...because it's my favorite painting, and it's a little something no one knows about me.

The painting is of a woman, Christina, who from what I understand lived in Maine along the coast.  She had some kind of muscular, nerve, or skeletal disorder that robbed her of her ability to walk.  In the painting, all the viewer sees is the back of her, in her pink dress, looking towards the house way up on the hill...she's got a large field to cross.  She's crawling on her hands, almost crab-like...the painting is very mystifying to me.

I don't know what's drawn me to this painting, or why I have liked it since I first saw it.  Christina is far from her house...when looking at the picture, you think she'll never get to make it up to the house with her disability.  For the longest time, that's what I saw.  But now, looking at it, I wonder how she got that far from the house in the first place.  She obviously had the strength to do that, so I believe she has the strength to get back.

One thing I've started learning in life, is that a lot of it is about perception.  Just talk to any kid...the stories they tell aren't so much different than what their parents say, just from a different point of view.  I used to look at things like the first thought I had about the painting..."How in God's name is she going to get back to that house???"  But a little change in attitude makes you say "She got herself out there, she can get herself back."

I think no matter what any of us faces, we can always get ourselves out there, but we can always get ourselves back.