A Boat Painting

I finished a painting the other day.  It was months in the making… Well, sort of.  I had done most of it  in one sitting a while back, but then when I got to the boat I felt really intimidated.  Boats have a certain look.  They are shiny, detailed and at times textured… They breathe somehow.  Their weightless freedom exudes life.  A boat in water is a beckoning of choices.  The mind knows that a boat is detailed and purposeful.  With living things occupying it… most of the time anyway.  It knows that a boat often conjures up ideas of relaxation… freedom… indulgence or at the very leas, a peaceful existence somehow.  But the photo I was painting from locked me into a very strict palette of whites (blue-hued to grey-hued) to work with.  It seemed too technical, and so I froze.  I made excuses not to finish.  I said the paper was warped.  I said the picture was to small to work with. I decided I really didn’t know what a boat looked like to be able to relate enough information between my mind and hands.

But alas, it is finished.  The paper is still warped.  The boat is a bit abstract.  But it is a full-fledged painting.  And I am proud of it.  Astonishment hits me everytime I finish something striking.  I really couldn’t teach someone how to do it.  But it just flows out.  I guess that is why a unique ability is called a “gift”… Because its goodness is so unexpected even to the one who possesses it.

Memories

No, not the song from Cats… But the ones that haunt us… Sometimes in good ways, sometimes not so good. There are times when I want to just go back in time to when things were simple… Easy. Life was uncomplicated with responsibilities. Having fun was par for the course. Time was my own.  Spending time with friends was a given.  Going for a hike in the snow with my best friend (who later became my husband) who let me be me and come alive as a person… And getting lost in the whiteness of the landscape and not caring because even if we never found our way out we at least were together and that was all we needed right then. Looking back I see this journey that just seems so short but I know is full so many changes. Life-sized changes. If time was my own now I would seize moments like that again. I would make life happen… But now I am very familiar with how life has happened to me. It seems like there is always so much to get done. So much to re-do phyiscally (housework, schedules) and to re-do emotionally (meeting the needs of others, sorting through the pain of the past).  Sometimes I just wish that wishes could some true… But I would need an endless supply because I can always think of something else to wish for.  For today, I wish the dishes would do themselves and the vacuuming too.  I would also wish for friends who lived next door.  And I would wish for peace in a heart that feels so much it just seems easier to shut down and feel nothing.  I would wish for the abiltiy to play the piano and sing my heart out and somehow let go of feeling so much at once.  Like I said an endless supply of wishes… I guess what more could be expected in an imperfect world.