I always come back to paint nature or landscapes as a way to ground back into the beauty of material reality. As I was working on this painting, I was listening to one of my favourite meditation teachers, Tara Brach. In an episode of her podcast, she tells a story of a talk she had with a friend, where they both discussed the subject of “having a feeling that something bad is about to happen”, and suggested a change on that narrative and said: “what about change it into having a feeling that something good is about to happen”. I don’t quite remember their exact words, but paraphrasing it, that was the overall sentiment of the talk and I quite resonated with it, since quite often I experience the feeling of anticipation and I assume that is something bad or negative that is about to come. I was just finishing the last details of this painting as I heard this podcast episode and I decided to call the painting after that phrase and write it on the lower part of the canvas. It is not very visible, since it is written with golden oil pastel, but with a closer look it can be appreciated.

Interestingly, later that evening I received tragic news about something that happened to a dear friend of mine as she was on holiday with her boyfriend and the whole year (2025) turned out to be a very challenging one, facing a lot of loss of loved ones and people around me, something I have never experienced before. I don’t consider loss as something negative, it is just part of life, but it is true that it is painful and difficult and one requires a lot of patience and compassion to hold oneself and others during the process, since grief changes the meaning of time by slowing it down and therefore making it more intense. Nonetheless, same as loss, change is also an unavoidable part of life and as time passes by, grief also moves one, leaving space for something new and fresh. Nothing lasts forever but we can be sure that on the other side of pain and loss, there is something good waiting