Some Golden, Wishful Place

I am laughing with her, my watery eyes sparkling. My sister sits on my other side, cheeky. She loves this too. 

This painting is a dream, a vain attempt to make it real. The truth is that my sister and I never got to see our mom’s hair turn silver or her wrinkles set in. She died young. And in her too-short life, she had one wish for her daughters: to escape her cruel fate and to have the years she never had. She wished that we would live to grow old.

So I went on a journey to some distant universe, some golden, wishful place, where the three of us are together like this. I spent hours guiding pencil thin strokes across a canvas, colour moving off the pallet one little dip at a time, morphing and changing, mixing and becoming. Shapes taking form, likenesses emerging through shadow and depth. The incredibly tedious and beautiful process of pigment, oil, brush, and vision.

Painting is a dance, really. A long-choreographed process of stepping back and looking, while drinking tea and wandering contentedly through my heart. Mixing memories and colours with intuition and tiny brush strokes. Highlighting, softening, detailing, shifting. When I’m painting, I am in a steady rhythm of revisiting, changing my perspective, pushing myself to really see. I squint my eyes and I tilt my head—over and over.

And in all this movement and deep focus, my spirit dances too. I dance backwards and forwards through time.

I remember the texture of my mother’s skin, the scent of Chanel, the twinkle in her eye. Then, as I blush my happy cheeks cadmium red, I imagine my grandbabies. The chubby softness, the giggles, my last sweet indulgence. I float and I dive, and all the while, I hold my sister’s hand. I hold onto the treasured lifelong bond, the loyalty, the history, the shared life we have lived.  

In the golden light of this place, I am face to face with the crone within me. I am looking right into her eyes, acknowledging her power, knowing that she is resting, gestating for now. Her time is coming. With all the moons behind her, wild wisdom flowing through her snowy hair, she will shine soon enough.

She tells me to slow down, soften, surrender, and let go. She tells me to paint and paint and paint my heart out and she urges me to jump in. Say yes. Make it happen. She tells me to never stop dreaming, creating, and living. I hear my mother’s voice, my grandmother’s voice, the voice of all our grandmothers, melodic and kind. I hear my sister—all the sisters. We are always with you, they say, we believe in you. We are here.