The Light I Used to Live In

 

This painting has lived on my dining room wall since 2018.

I worked on it in small bursts, ten minutes, sometimes less.
A strip of paper. A wash of teal. A bird, then another.

Sometimes I added color because I needed to regulate.
Sometimes because I was restless.
Sometimes because I wanted to feel something move.

Sometimes because I needed to dip my finger in color and fingerpaint like I was five.

It has been many paintings.

There was a version with a partial Steinbeck quote:
“look from the tide pool to the stars.” 
Those words are still there.
Buried, but not gone.

I painted over things I loved.
I softened what felt too sharp.
I let birds and metaphors and diamonds arrive without asking why.

The eye has watched the whole time.

The light has changed shape more than once.

Over the years it absorbed seasons, dinners, conversations, silence, me sitting in the dark staring at it during one particularly severe bout of insomnia.
It held steady when I didn’t.
It opened up when I did.

The Light I Used to Live In
is not about losing brightness.

It’s about recognizing it in all its versions.

The tide pool.The stars.The rainbows.

And the spaces in between.

five good things

first layers of the magic garden (acrylic, ink, oil pastel, pencil on canvas)

1. as an introvert, I do my best work alone, but I sure do miss regular exposure to work friends (I’ve been contemplating returning to full time work and work friends are in the “pro” column)

2. if there was an award for best tuna salad sandwich I would probably win it

3. I want to live in a world where the real life detectives in ‘unbelievable’ get the medal of freedom

4. we have so many low-tone chimes around the house that on a windy day I can close my eyes and be transported to a west coast pier. also simon’s bark sounds just like a sea lion, rounding out the daydream

5. painting is the gardening of winter

sunday grace: just for one day

this painting is propped on an easel in the downstairs studio.  i started it last september and it has been painted and repainted about six times.  its current state, still unfinished, still a bit of a mess, was inspired by my feelings following the death of david bowie.  i love that i know and experienced its understories.  all of them.  not one of the layers underneath the surface has anything to do with david bowie.

and yet they have everything to do with david bowie.

each layer we live, each moment, each transformation, each version and story of who we are, never leaves us.  they are all there beneath the surface, in the tissue, in the fiber, in the blood, in our individual and complex limbic terrains.

when we show up, they show up with us.

i take great comfort in this thought, especially on days like today.  i am uncertain and a little fearful today.  but i have had some courageous days.  and they echo in the back beat of my pulse.  today they will show up with me, in all my uncertainty and fear.    my own little gang of heroes.

sunday grace: spring

new creatures whirl in from non-existence,

galaxies scattered around their feet.

have you met them?

-rumi

deep sigh.
deep gratitude.
for the beginning of things.
over and over again.
spring in virginia.
in this home.
in this soul.