“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Pablo Picasso once said that the purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.
Well, I’ve had the dust permanently washed off mine.
A year after college, I was in a terrible accident. My sweet family was first told to expect the worst. But I had wonderful doctors, that loving family, and a whole lot of luck on my side. Slowly, I learned how to eat again, how to read again, how to write again, how to walk again, and yes, how to run again.
Before this, I had always been cheerful, optimistic, and appreciative. But now, my positivity has been supercharged. Eating a good apple, or seeing a good movie with friends, or reading a few pages of a good book each give me a perhaps outsized happiness, because there was a time not long ago when I could not do any of these.
Now, I will make that good movie and write that good book. I will create art that brings joy and light to the world, that inspires resilience, strength, and resolve.
I nearly lost my one wild and precious life. But I got a second chance, and I won’t waste it.
— Brooke Biederman