In the day to day whoosh of things to do and deal with, we may be conscious of our time being limited on a daily or hourly basis, but often forget the bigger time limit, life itself.   The grandmother of the French artist Françoise Gilot reminds us that life is a reprieve from non-life, allowing us to delight in the sight of a flower or in another person. 

We are living out a kind of reprieve, and when you come to realize that, you live no longer for yourself, but as much for the sight of a flower or for the odour of something or for other people as for your own desires or comfort.  Because you know that your time is limited.  

Françoise Gilot herself is still enjoying that reprieve, now at 100 years old.  Enjoy yours. 

Source: Françoise Gilot’s grandmother, quoted in Françoise Gilot and Carlton Lake, Life with Picasso (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1966) (McGraw-Hill, 1964), p. 78

Photo credit: shijingsjgem at pixabay