Today was a mixed up day. There is a good deal of uncertainty in our lives these days surrounding our occupations and the choices we've made throughout the two decades and more that Scott and I have been working together to build our lives. Nothing monumentally critical, we have our health and sanity (
most days) and family and love so nothing that we don't believe we can't find the tools to handle, just not the somewhat more relaxed winter days of planning and dreaming with some rest and rehabilitation as in years past.
So, when I went to my easel today I went with an empty cup. Frustration, resentment and not an ounce of desire to create anything new or inspirational went with me. The project I settled on was not started this month, I actually started well over a year ago and just got away from it. Again, not my "usual" style but something I really enjoy doing, when in the mood...I call these pieces my colouring book pages. I had inked out the image before and had done a small amount of filling in with watercolour. I decided that colouring was about all I could handle today.
What really helped is that it is my mom and dad's. My childhood home. With the riotous, very ambitious and yet well tended flower garden and raspberries which took over much of the vegetable patch after we kids left home.
Soon enough I was mesmerized in examining the photo and laying down the colours of the yard where I grew up and the place I will always think of as "home" and soon enough everything fell back into a more manageable place again.
Almost as good as a hug from them both. Or like, snuggling up in the corner of one couch in the living room while dad watches television (likely curling if I'd gone today) on the other sofa all the while offering a running commentary or opinion on the broadcast while slipping in quiet phrases of encouragement and support.
Or flopping across their bed upstairs watching mom doing needlework or knitting in her armchair while pouring out my woes, which would eventually lead to us both lamenting choices made, then recalling better days, then laughing at the so many amazing memories that would not have been made had the choices been different. Finally, that would lead me back to dreaming of what tomorrow may be.
In no time at all I'd be filled up with love to overflowing. Fixed and as good as new for the next thousand miles, not to say that we don't have vast differences in opinions, or that I didn't take completely opposite paths than they would have if they could have chosen for me, but there's something so rare and precious about just going home and being unconditionally supported by your parents. Even when you feel like a complete failure, even when you're supposed to be all grown up....it is a feeling I will always carry with me and always treasure.
Hoping this colouring book painting is a gift that they will enjoy during all their tomorrows no matter where life takes them. Hoping I will have them to continue to support me for many years yet and that I am adequate at supporting them too. I also hope they know that when I think back to my childhood, this is what I see, a picture perfect storybook life, a beautiful home overflowing with creativity and love, a secure and safe haven, that's what they and this place will always be to me.
18 x 12
watercolour
