I’m pumped to finally have artwork out in the world again, with the opening of the Healing Arts show at Hudson Hospital. I haven’t really painted much since college. That was nearly a decade ago. I wonder how that could possibly be, but at the same time I know. I have a drive to create, but it’s been like pulling teeth for almost my entire life. And then my sister died and set that creative spark ablaze. Thank goodness for the healing therapy of art. Where would we be without it?
Detail from "She Lives: Gathered Pieces"
Sister She
I shouldered the weight with a shifting stance, trying to balance burdens she’d left behind in torn and wrinkled pages of a spiral-bound journal. Nightmares, worries, hauntings, sins… scrawled, laid bare in black and bleeding ink.
I consumed her final threadbare words like water from the sea. Parched, I gulped to quench an unending thirst only to find drying salt that left me desiccated. Crystallized pain. Petrified spirit. Fossilized end. This couldn’t be her final say… so the story began again.
Place my paper wings on a shelf where they will be safe so God can make me a bird when the time is right.
She recognized when that time finally came and flew beyond these illusive bars leaving glimmering gray dust on a bittersweet breeze. Eyes opened and she saw wonders she hadn’t known were hers to see. Flowers everywhere… strawberry blossoms and wild roses matched her, smiling daisies and forget-me-nots reminded of me.
The Ohm in yoga reminded of her. Downward Dog, the world up-side-down. Music and Sister told me I was strong. I was in Rag-doll, heart and chest melting to the floor. I flowed through pain, heat, tears…heard, I’m sorry, don’t worry, I love you, you’ll be OK, I’m waiting.
I rose up to find Mountain and stood strong. Music punched through the cage of my heart. I breathed, gulped life, and finally came to rest in Corpse Pose.
I saw Sister. She moved to my head, playing with threads of my brittle browning tresses like we’d always said we felt spirits do. Her fingers moved to caress, wanting to soften what had been left stale. She would braid my hair, leaving a crown of flowers there if she could.
Apart she came back to herself, gathering all the lost pieces. She finally let herself feel and she felt it all. Parted her lips and sang a brave bold voice. Found herself in melody she never thought she’d resonate to again.
I found the pieces of me and her, too, living in color that streamed onto my canvas. Bristled brushes swept bright and I went with them. Turquoise complimented swaying olive leaves. Vivid pastel orange dripped from cascading petals. Calm water matched calm emotion. I lost myself in layers and melted into texture.
A frilly green ribbon cut from one of Sister’s shirts, still smelling of incense and cotton candy perfume, accented the landscape. Flowers hid behind sheets of paint–light yellows swirling with pinks, blues–only to bloom again when their time was right. “The Earth laughs in flowers,” Emerson says and I laughed along.
Satisfied, a bird leaned in happily from its burlap branch, sipping sweet ultramarine waters that swam around a popping magenta bud. Floral dust moved on a breeze, out beyond the edges of the frame to the rest of a world I could only begin to glimpse from where I stood.
Confetti thrown up high… My footing balanced, shoulders leveled, black ink was fading. Slowly, gently, white words filled empty space between pauses of dancing tones. They moved through light that was her, crossed over earth elements we’d known together, and kissed a breeze that simultaneously carried her away and kept us connected.
She found all the pieces of herself and remembers what it means to live. Sunlight streamed through frostbitten windows into the heart of a creative world I was starting to see in full. I read the words over, and then I read them again.
