The Onions by Auguste RenoirJust when I was feeling sorry I don’t have an extra $135 to hop on a plane to see Lesley in NYC, or $900 for a snowblower for Don to clear the driveway this winter, or $700 plane fare for Peter to visit his friend in Milan, I read in my birthday book Celebrating the Impressionist Table (by Pamela Todd),
“Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, Alfred 
Sisley, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Auguste Renoir, Edouard Manet and Frédéric Bazille . . . lived on a stream of credit . . . often they were without money to eat, let alone paint. . . .Once, in Arles, van Gogh lived for four days on forty-three cups of coffee and stale crusts of bread, while covering canvas after canvas with a glorious explosion of vivid color. . . . Renoir kept Monet, his mistress, Camille Doncieux, and their son from starvation by bringing them scraps filched from his parents’ table. ‘We might not eat every day,’ Renoir wrote to Bazille, ‘but I’m content because Monet is great company for painting.’”
Jean Monet by Claude Monet (Jean is Claude's son by Camille Doncieux)
Le dejeuner sur l'herbe by Claude Monet
Contentment has nothing to do with how much I have, or don’t have. It has nothing to do with financial status. It has to do with what I value, and whether I believe I have enough.
“I might not have ____________, but I’m content because ____________.”
How do you fill in the blanks?
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