the weight of the paint used to picture me

my life is a picture. a record of every line lost, smudged, and made whole again.

I could spend days looking out into the sunlight walking you through every stroke, where the paint was layered slowly - filling the cracks without erasing them. These are the days when painting is gentle. With light hands the brush is held steady choosing colors that catch the light, making the surface shimmer. A refreshed palette with a gentle light that is not forced brings days that are easy. They are calm and they bring to memory strokes that linger, holding space for the canvas to breathe, with colors that are chosen after observing the past, not despite it. I can guide you around the room, and point out how it is warm and glazed in gentleness, open and unburdened. If you look around, the walls are a soft linen, the open windows help the air settle, and the room is layered with care.

Yet beyond the sunlight, when the day settles and the world becomes quiet, I can drag you to the back rooms. I’ll show you the canvases where the shadow was layered so much that the image disappeared completely. With tired eyes, I point out a hole where another portrait should be. A section of a canvas ripped clean out, an image stripped away. With an absent mind, I’ll show you original colors that were smeared beyond recognition from being forced violently onto the canvas-strokes that were forced into it by another hand, altered without permission. I can go further back into the room and reach for the canvases where the bristles snapped and embedded themselves onto the canvas. I’ll point out the brushstrokes that dug gouges instead of leaving color. I’ll grab the smaller canvas tucked away with a frame holding emptiness where something was meant to grow. Paint flung across the edges which left the frame spattered and jagged. The palette meant to hold the paint for this picture became so heated to the point that the paint darkened to near black. You’ll see how this room has violent reds slashed across calmer tones, paint that seeps into every layer, no matter how often I try to wash it away. Red hues that flare even when you step back, unwanted yet alive. You’ll notice that I’ve tried to scrape it off, only to reveal it again when the light shifts. Those are the days that light becomes hard to find and the darkness is comforting.

As we walk back out to a gloomy entrance, with skies washed in muted tones; I’ll sit on the front porch with a canvas that’s has strokes of sunlight bleeding into the edges of a dark canvas. Hopefulness filling the hands of a painter who’s brush hovers lightly, the past dark pigment blending into the bright strokes. Soft gold washes over the cracks, revealing color even where the canvas is scarred. Joy settles in like a thin glaze, delicate and careful, over scars that refuse to vanish. Aware again of the story, the brush hovers patiently, guided by something larger than my hand. Each stroke carries a prayer, a quiet invitation for hope to settle into the empty spaces. I allow it to settle and take me back in, no longer beholden to the colors forced onto me. I paint it with freedom, faith coloring the choices I make even when the colors become dark again.