My daughter is the artist among us. Not a painter, though, she’s quick to point out. Still, I want her guidance. I aspire to her aesthetic wisdom. “What should I add?” I ask.
The sun warms our silky pates, the three of us splayed on the grass—my artist daughter; her cat, Charlotte Charles (OK, I pushed the Charles addition, but Charlie Charlie suits the black-and-white tuxedo); and me. We humans share a pallet between us. Copper, teal, and gold!
“You just have to keep going,” Mandy tells me. She pours gobs of watery orange so it drips like wax toward the faces at the bottom of her canvas.
“It’s a metaphor for life,” one of us says. We roll our eyes and burst into laughter because we are too badass for cheesy metaphors and also very good at them.
Sometimes, when I look at my daughter, this crazy thing happens. Our eyes—her umber to my cornflower—meet, and we’ll time warp. Or I do. It’s just me. I’ve asked. For me, the world shifts, and I’m looking at a younger version of myself. Or, rather, we’ve briefly melded into one, like the horizon and sea can do. You know when you take a step only to find the ground not quite where you expected it, and for a split second it’s woozy dizzying, which is surprising because it’s only a little shift? It’s like that. Plus exhilarating. I’m all, How the hell? And, Whoa, you’re so young and beautiful. If you only knew your power. And, as I’m morphing back into me, Thank the goddesses you found me. (I don’t mean that in a cosmic way. I didn’t raise my daughter. As a teen, I gave birth and adopted her out and ached for her ever since. She found me on FaceBook two weeks after her eighteenth birthday.)
This most recent warp doesn’t happen on the grass in the sun but, rather, later while we’re making dinner in her kitchen. On the lawn, she grins at me through golden rays, picks up a leaf dowsed in paint, and says, “Hit it with something.” She smacks the leaf against her canvas. “You just gotta keep adding layers, and it’ll get better.”
I laugh, my brushstrokes slowly growing looser and more confident. Charlie Charlie mews.
Here’s the piece I came up with. We’re arting again today, the last day of my visit to her sweet rainbow chateau (my name for her apartment). I’ll let you know how it goes.
I like your piece. Very creative. It’s simple and beautiful. I like to hear about you and Alli together. It helps me to know her better. I’m so thankful she’s a part of the family.
This looks really cool!! And layers make everything better!!
The wor of beating a leaf is very nice. I think your daughter is an artist.
She is for sure. (I didn’t beat the leaf into the painting. I pressed it in delicately. But I’m definitely not the artist. :)
I like your piece. Very creative. It’s simple and beautiful. I like to hear about you and Alli together. It helps me to know her better. I’m so thankful she’s a part of the family.