Seeing “her” not the gray tones…
It’s one of those typical 1950s black-and-white photos found in our family albums, before the 1960s brought cheaper color film, Instamatic cameras, and those Polaroids where you could see the picture right away.
These always came across as ancient history — like something found in a history textbook rather than a real moment out of a someone’s life. Even as I know it is about 1957, it could have easily been judged as earlier, except for the car. Only the car gives a clue as to the time period…if you know enough about 1950s cars. And as far as “mood,” it’s hard to tell much unless you really study the shades of gray.
My early life was shrouded in enough shades of gray already. I wanted to see the real “me” from that time…get as close to the living, breathing, in-the-moment me as I could. Close enough to feel my cold breath on that winter day, and hear my laughter of delight sitting so big and proud on that car hood.
The details of a photo…
It’s not that you can’t pick out important information from that photo.
For example, I can tell it’s a sunny day – either early morning or late afternoon based on the sharp angle of sunlight and shadows on my snowsuit, the car hood, and the tree trunk.
Given my knowledge of that location – Klug Hill Road in West Torrington, CT — and which side of the tree and my snowsuit the sun is hitting, I suspect it is late afternoon.
Also, because I am wearing a snowsuit and the trees have no leaves, I know it is a winter day. The overcast tinge of the sky against the background points to a typical “partly sunny-partly cloudy,” very changeable New England winter day. And the suggestion of clouds on the bottom left horizon further confirms that the weather might change at any time.
The car is a Chevy sedan. Between the photo details, my knowledge of the car from family lore, my research, and my car-geek husband’s knowledge of 1950s Chevy sedans, I know it is a light blue, 1954, 2-door Chevy Belair sedan.
The dented front bumper documents the frequent car accidents my father had back then, which my mother used to complain about during my childhood.
Based on my size, type of shoes, and clothing, as well as personal knowledge such as when I was born and details from a few other pictures of that day, I can estimate my age to be about 2 years old. So the photo is circa 1957.
And I am smiling. So, at the very least, at this moment, life is okay.
So, yes, it is very possible to extract a lot of information from that black-and-white photo. Yet there is a distance to that photo, and a distance to me. I can “analyze” that picture and deduce things, but I sure don’t “feel me” or like I am even real.
Now, consider the painted image.
And then, there’s color…
When I painted it, I didn’t fabricate anything about it. Yet the painted scene has a very different quality. There is something about casting it in full color that enhances that moment and infuses it with life, energy, and emotion.
It’s one thing to deduce from the details that it was a sunny, winter, late afternoon. It’s another thing to see and feel that late afternoon sun casting shadows across a car hood and a bleak, leafless landscape. Color brings an immediacy to the moment that gray tones just don’t. This moment could be happening right now, old car notwithstanding.
So, it was my way to bring the “me of that moment” back to life — feel her joy, sense her soul — instead of being buried in the shadowy cobwebs of the past.
The eyes of the adult
I also loved that color enriched my sense of atmosphere, mood, and setting, as if I was standing right there in that wintry field that afternoon. Obviously, I was there that afternoon, as a toddler.
But what I want in this experience is to be the *observer*, standing off to the side, this time looking at that same scene with the eyes, emotions, and sensibilities of an adult.
Often, the things we remember from childhood can have seriously mistaken interpretations. We missed important things in the moment. We had no context for understanding. We knew so little of life.
For example, in those moments, we may have thought of ourselves as fully formed, capable, and hence…responsible for whatever was being done to us at that moment.
Yet now, when I look at myself from that time so long ago…_fully look at that moment_ with the eyes of an elder, I see many more things.
For one, certainly, I see one of the happy moments in our house…of which there were many, which was something that made it all the harder to tease out love from abuse for so long.
Second, I fondly remember the location and always loved driving by on my way to work at the local hospital. The rural nature of the spot filled me with peace, and it also fed my love of local history, since this was the area where the town was originally settled.
But most of all, when I look at that painting, I finally see…FULLY see the true nature of that toddler and feel the full sense of outrage and indignation at what happened, emotions I’d never been able to access before. I look at that painting and see her vulnerability. When we remember our younger selves, we forget just how powerless we were.
I commented to my husband one day that I didn’t realize just how small and powerless I was, and what an uneven playing field it had been.
“I was damned no matter how I tried to deal with him.”
He responded, “You were damned the minute he chose you.”
And in that moment, I finally understood — I wasn’t damned by my choices but by his.
This time, I don’t see a kid who was responsible for the abuse done to her. I don’t see “damaged goods” or someone who failed to stand up to her father. I see this young, beautiful, vulnerable, pure, innocent who had no idea what she was in for, not someone stupid or who should have “known better.” She was not responsible for what was coming.
So by being able to re-experience all of it as much as possible — image, atmosphere, detail, location, history, color, and mood — I can “travel back there” and see it all with my adult eyes.
The moments never captured on film
Another reason for painting is to see the moments that were never captured on film. While I have many old photos of parts of my life, nobody was around with a camera when he was abusing me or hitting my mother. Those didn’t end up in the album.
So, I want to see what those moments looked like for a grown man to hold a 6-year-old against a wall by her throat and fully appreciate that discrepancy of power between us. Or to see what it looked like from “down the hall” on that day in 1983 when he knocked my mother to the floor. It is the way to gain a new perspective on all those things frozen in my memories.
Stopping the “video loop”
The other “gift” from painting these things was that I could finally release them from their prison in my brain. Those moments, while not on film, were preserved as anxiety in the “album” of my nervous system. They are remembered in vivid, detailed flashes of specific moments or places of terror that were seared into my brain.
The unprocessed traumas have sat there filed away in my memory banks, alive, spinning over and over as if someone forgot to turn off the projector and the video loop keeps playing. The emotions of those moments have been alive within me all these years, churning beneath the surface. And until they are reconnected to my adult me and released, they will continue to do just that.
That is the reason a person may sit there on a sunny and calm day, but be overwhelmed with anxiety, inexplicably tense, vigilant for some threat, and not know why. But, in fact, we do know. It’s just that those memories are buried like some old file folder in a dusty cabinet, forgotten, and waiting to finally be pulled out and seen for what they are.
For her…and all the kids who have a story to tell
Lastly, when I question why I am telling this story, I can take just one look at that painting and know I am writing this for her…for my young, innocent self, who had no idea what was coming for her, especially in that car. I am telling this story so she can finally be heard.
And beyond myself, I write also to give witness to all the children out there who have a story, who lived through hell, and who also deserve to be finally seen and heard.
Soul Mosaic 
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