Bloom

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. 

Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. 

If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, 

not even to an animal. 

Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; 

lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. 

But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. 

It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

-C.S. Lewis

The Bigger Truth

It's true. 

Earth groans with the weight

Of horrifying twistedness.

But, already, 

The untwisting redemption

Has sprouted and grown. 

Even the darkest dark

Burnishes the brilliance

Of all else:

The good, the wholesome,

The honest, peaceful,

Safe, and loving. 

mirror, mirror (bulletin board)

Once upon a time, there was a mirror. She was ghastly. So gold and gaudy that whenever light struck her, she projected shadows instead of casting her own. Outdated and shamed, she sat in a thrift store.

Of course you know what happens next in these stories. She was seen, carried, and taken home with great rejoicing. She was given a new coat of paint, which made her frame look like lace. Proudly she hung in a spot all her own on the living room wall.

Until tragedy struck.

A broom, innocently set against the wall by the person who had cared for her, slid down the wall. It all happened so fast. She tried to hold onto her anchoring nail, but the fatal blow had been dealt. She crashed to the hard, cruel floor.

Her heart was broken.

So was her face.

She remembered no more. 

Only a few pictures impressed themselves on her delirium. Vaguely, she felt pulled and poked. 

(Narrator's note: the surgeon was too lazy to cut two pieces of cork to fit the entire frame, so she bandaged the gaping wound with lace.)

(Another narrator's note: Sharon, do you recognize a few things?) :) 

Today, our brave little mirror is not a mirror any more. But she is back in her very own spot on the living room wall, happier than ever. Her new life has just begun. 

dance of daughters

Over a latte and an espresso macchiato, she and I, respectively, painted with words the dance we try to learn. Femininity, role, gender, equality, dream, freedom, responsibility... God. All that and me. And her. The steps we learn, the toes we step on, the embarrassments we make, the slippers we lose, the twirls in which we exult.

Sometimes silence is most wise, but sometimes it is only easy comatose. That is no conclusion, but perhaps it will guide the dance.

"Cultures in which women have not found their voice, or are silenced, are scary places. They do not produce good men." That's what my dad says.

Maybe, when we are old, the lines in our faces will sketch the pattern of a woman shaped in the likeness of her God. Yes. That's why we engage this push and give, this question and peace.

closer

Aspirations. My head has always been full of them, my heart running about five steps ahead in about six different directions. And God has been generous, so very generous in the helpings of opportunity He serves me.  I've done more in my short quarter-century than I ever imagined. 

And I like to think I know where and to what He will take me next. 

But this has been a changing sort of year. It feels like God is shoving things around, rearranging the furniture of my heart... until I'm not sure who lives here any more. Or what dreams fit into the revealed corners. 

It's a little disconcerting. 

Simultaneously, more opportunities present themselves than ever before. It's hard to choose between them when I really don't know what I want. Maybe the problem is that I want to do everything.

I hugged the questions to myself in the darkness of the plane. The moon, round and full, bounced off the wing outside my window until we banked. I looked up, then down, suspended between the fullness of the moon and all the lights of Memphis in rows like jewels on velvet. 

In the silent moment of catching my breath, the questions ebbed. In flowed slowly, like a tide, the music. 

"Nearer, my God, to thee

Nearer to thee!"

And into my memory dropped my dad's voice. He had been talking about his life, and how it's turning out so vastly different than he'd dreamed. After the uncertainty and pain, the forceful rebirth into what he never thought, his rest declared this triumph: "I'm forty-eight and closer to God than I've ever been." 

I still don't know quite what to do next, but I know what I want. Most of all. Anything that brings me closer. 

"Jazz", a painting

This painting has been a long time in formation. The drummer is inspired by photo I shot in New Orleans a few years ago. For the record, all the things you've heard about New Orleans are true. Have you heard that people dance in the streets to jazz all day? And that everywhere wrought iron drips like lace? Yup, truth. Culture, cuisine, history, art, and music. New Orleans has it all. I admit, I fell in love a little. With the city, and with jazz. 

Jazz. I like it. And sometimes I hate it. It's so restless. So aching. Even the lively songs with bright notes and lots brass have this urgent, almost contradictory feel. And then there are the bluesy, sobbing ones that bring your soul all choking into your throat. 

Jazz, and other types of music that have a lot of aching and dissonance, teach me a lot. I love the parts of a song that are chilling and awful. There is a rare beauty there. But I kind of hold my breath and want the music to speed along to the end, or the next note, where there is resolution and the beauty is a little less wild. More safe. 

I live that way sometimes, too. Holding my breath and not enjoying the beauty of dissonance. Of conflicting emotion. Of questions that can't be answered now. Of un-redeemed brokenness. 

I want to breathe in those chords. 

In this painting, I tried to capture what jazz... and melancholy, bluesy music in general... makes me feel. A conflicting jumble of aching and reveling. And I wanted to celebrate the unresolved. The dissonant. In the world and in me. Redemption will come. It will be made right. But redemption might not be so breath-taking if the broken is pretended away. 

Here's what I did to try to portray all that: 

Blue and red are conflicting colors. The human eye can't process them both simultaneously. True story. 

The graffiti and more urban style felt fitting because life is simply more raw and honest on street level.

The drummer facing away from the black circle, his back and the circle of his hat juxtaposed against each other, hopefully lent a feeling of conflict to the composition, while the position of the round cymbal (again, hopefully) lends enough direction to the composition to keep it fluid.

Only painting the highlights on the drummer and cymbal, then switching to paining the shadows and black values on his neck and beard are another contrast. 

I really had a lot of fun with this piece. It's a completely new style for me, and it took a while to stop being careful. For the blues in the background, I brushed water on the canvas (like a watercolor wash) and floated the color on top, letting it do what it wanted. The only intentional color blending I did was the edges, for which I added black to darken the blue and kept building it until the edges had a more contained, finished feel. Immediately after brushing the graffiti (because I used acrylic paint, and it dries fast), I sprayed the letters with water and let the color run. I wasn't entirely sure I wanted the cool blue shades breached, but it was totally fascinating to watch. Again, learning not to be so careful. I also had fun letting the paint get a little dry and "globby", using it to add some 3-d texture in the lettering and the drummer's beard. 

So, breathe in the dissonance. And create things. It keeps you alive.

no comeback

My co-worker Mark and I had a lot of filing to do while the kids slept. As in, a stack of paper a few inches thick. After sorting it out with each client's papers in a stack, we proceeded. Almost done, Mark pointed to a stack of paper sitting somewhat aloof and asked, "Is that a person?"

He meant, of course, "Is that a person's pile?" As opposed to, say, duplicate copies to be shredded. Just to be facetious and because he appreciates dry humor, I replied, "No, Mark. It's a stack of paper."

"What makes you sure?"

"It's flat and white."

"My brother-in-law is flat and white."

I couldn't think of a comeback due to gasping with laughter, but he kept on with a perfect monotone:

"It's true. He's so thin and has such a big head that I call him Mr. Earthworm. I don't think he appreciates it as much as I do."

(I laugh so much at work.)