LE JARDIN A VÉTHEUIL

I found this lovely picture today. It was painted by Monet in 1880 in a suburb of Paris called Vétheuil. When Monet's wife died of cancer, the family moved to this house, just north of the city, which they shared with a family called Hoschedé. The two children are almost certainly Monet's sons, Jean and Michel, and the lady on the steps is probably Alice Hoschedé, whom Monet would later marry when her first husband died.

Monet was a colour-fanatic. Look at the way the sunflowers spread across the canvas, perfectly orange against the complementary blue sky. It's a delicate balance of light and shade. The two children are stepping into a world of summer, a place where the air is warm and the tall sunflowers reach for the sun in hope of a brighter tomorrow. It's astonishing isn't it, that Monet has created this 'impression' almost entirely by colour.

That's what I think. For me, this pretty little postcard from 1880 is a picture of hope. As I've grown older I've started to realise that nothing is permanent, nothing is fixed; everything is temporary - and that understanding that is the key to help us cope with change. Change comes but hope remains.

Change is many things: inevitable, beautiful, painful and irresistible. It happens with the tides and the seasons, and every second that ticks by on this spinning planet. Sunflowers grow, clouds skip through fresh blue skies and children discover the scent of summer after a winter of mourning.

I have a kind of hard-wired habit of thinking that a change lasts indefinitely. Therefore, anything that's proposed should be scrutinised and analysed, picked apart for holes and critical errors, just in case (gasp) we've all got it terribly wrong for all eternity and we all have to live in the misery of it. I don't know where this in-built kind of serious thinking comes from. I have to remind myself that change can be good and it's not always irreversible, especially if it's followed up by more iterative steps in the right direction. It is easier, someone once said, to change course if the ship is already moving.

That's why I think I'm more chilled about change these days, perhaps a bit more laissez-faire. I have no desire to halt time, to freeze-frame the moment like a photograph. I think life is much more fluid than that. There are some big changes happening at the moment, some season-switching and attitude melting - maybe big changes for me to handle are on their way too. You know what? It is well with me.

Is that Alice Hoschedé or is it a kind of painted memory of Camille, standing there on the steps in pastel brush strokes? I like to think it's both. Past, present and future, the indeterminate faceless hope, morphing from one into the other, changing, transforming, loving and growing, as the two children step excitedly down the sun-kissed steps into the garden where their father is painting.

I really like this picture.