Along with all the released pain, the ache in my heart, the emptied out mess of my life before me, there was also an ironic twist in facing this work.
When I painted this particular self-portrait, it was after a hard session of EMDR work. I was looking for a way to capture how much fear, sorrow, pain, and despair I was experiencing at that moment.
On a whim, I took a selfie and realized all of the emotions were right there in my eyes. So, I decided to paint that picture. In fact, all of those feelings were so strong and so near the surface that I did the painting in about an hour.
Unbeknownst to me, Ed, who was exercising in the living room, kept looking over, as he described it, “watching the image emerge.” As the eyes formed and came into focus, he felt horror. Later, he acknowledged I had nailed “that look,” but he also hesitated before saying the rest.
He didn’t have to. I finished the sentence for him.
The gift
“Yes, the eyes, the face….they’re him…I know…I look like him, not her. I see it every time I look in the mirror…every…single…morning.”
He nodded. He said when he first saw the eyes coming out of the canvas, he thought “My God, she’s painting him,” but then realized I was painting me.
We were both quiet for a moment, then he remarked, “Maybe that’s the gift. It’s certainly true that you and Richard Phillip will always be close in distance.”
Another person might have been horrified or angry at his comment, but this was my dear husband, the man who has walked through hell with me our entire life together. And I have seen so many times his knack for spotting the ironic, counterintuitive side and nailing the hidden nugget of wisdom in a moment. So, I waited for him to continue.
“Yes, you look like him. And because of that, you can never run away. It’s right there in your face and always will be — all of it — the resemblance, the memories of the good he did, the scars he gave. That is the struggle that leaves you no choice but to face it. You CANNOT run, because he’s right there close by… in the mirror…every day. You can never forget…but then maybe we aren’t supposed to forget some things. It’s like Hitler…we should never forget him, even if it feels better to shove it all in the background and pretend it’s all better. We’re supposed to remember, so we can understand, and change it.”
Like I said, he nails it…
Tags: fiction, life, love, short story, writing
Soul Mosaic 
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