Lines on paper.
Lines on skin.
Lines to write
Our stories within.
—
Tell how we loved.
Show how we bled.
Scars left from battle
Like edits in red.
—
Creases and words.
Cross time and space.
Why not tell the stories
We fight to erase?
Image Source: Audrey Hepburn retro postcard from Paper Town of Love on Etsy
I can say without a doubt in my mind that December 21, 2013, the day between my mom’s death and her funeral, was one of the hardest of my life.
My sister and I zombied through Pulaski, Tennessee, with red eyes and runny noses doing all the things that immediate family members do when someone dies. We ordered flower arrangements. We visited the funeral home. We reviewed the drafted obituary. We picked out songs for the memorial service. We worked on a eulogy.
But the most difficult thing we did that day was visit her home. It wast difficult because Mom’s adorable house, situated at the bottom of a hill on West Jefferson Street, was perfect. It was a sanctuary. A reflection of the essence of her. Except the essence of her was gone.
Mom had remarried that spring and my sister and I went to her house that day in hopes of getting some of her things that held sentimental value and comfort and memories for us. To me, the most important of those things were her paintings.
Mom started painting about 10 years ago–mostly of angels or Madonnas. I loved her whimsical, vibrant style.
When we arrived to her sunroom-converted art studio, we found a handful paintings stacked in the corner. I flipped through and recognized a few from her Etsy shop. But there was a particular one I loved that was missing.
I asked her husband–Tom–if he knew anywhere else that painting might be, and he suggested the small storage shed on the side of the house.
And that’s where we found it.
Not just the painting I was hoping for but dozens of them. Stacks and stacks of her work–most of which I’d never seen before.
We brought them all in the house and began revealing one after the other, lining them along the walls so we could take them in. So we could bask in them.
They were magical. They were beautiful. They were her.
In addition to painting, Mom was a writer. And many of her paintings included words. Sometimes names of the Madonna or angel she was painting–Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Our Lady of Guadalupe. Other times just uplifting messages, whatever she felt inspired to say.
And as my heart swelled looking at those paintings born from her hands–the hands that raised me, the hands that molded me into everything I am–it was as if they were speaking to me.
A butterfly blinking the words “Joy is everywhere.”
A beautiful angel offering up “Transformation.”
A pink and purple tree, saying simply “Love grows.”
A skull surrounded by roses soothing, “I honour what is lost & found.”
A wavy-haired woman suggesting that “Grace makes us whole.”
It was like she had put those messages there for us. To ease our pain. To hold us as we cried. To echo in our heads as we mourned the loss of her.
The largest painting, nearly four times the size of the others, was of an anatomical heart, pierced with several spears and bursting with flames.
And written in Mom’s familiar handwriting in the top corner were these words:
“In sorrow’s stillness, a tear comes that prisms light, a sigh comes forth
and something that was broken breathes.”
I don’t know what Mom was thinking when she painted those words. Or who she had in mind. Or what angel guided her hand. But those words were exactly what I needed to hear.
Now nearly eight months have gone by. I’m past the phase where I forget she’s gone and am constantly t-boned by that devastating realization. I’m past the phase where I cry all the time. I’m past the phase where I can’t sleep at night, where I can’t sit still, where I can’t let my mind wander.
Instead, I’m in the phase where I just miss her. And I wish she was still around. To be my goofy mom and my sweet friend. Some days I can’t think about anything except her. And she’s all I can ever seem to write about, no matter how long I spend trying to think of another topic. And I get scared when I can’t remember exactly how her voice sounds or what her different facial expressions look like or all her amusing catchphrases.
Some days I feel like I’m barely scratching the surface of my grief.
And on those days, I know if she was here, she’d remind me of the words I found on another one of her paintings last December.
And of course, I know she’d be right.
Task: Think of your five favorite novels and read their opening lines. Ponder them. What makes them great. And how you can use their opening line strategies in your own writing.
Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston) Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.
The Fault in Our Stars (John Green) Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my free time to thinking about death.
Because It Is Bitter and Because It Is My Heart (Joyce Carol Oates) “Little Red” Garlock, ‘sixteen years old, skull smashed soft as a rotted pumpkin and body dumped into the Cassadaga River, near the foot of Pitt Street, must not have sunk as he’d been intended to sink, or floated as far.
All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich Maria Remarque) We are at rest five miles behind the front.
Let the Great World Spin (Colum McCann) Those who saw him hushed.
Some days I’m a writer.
Some days I’m a dreamer.
But on the rare days that I’m both,
That’s it. That’s when it’s magical.
Whoever said “actions speak louder than words” was not a writer.
On a record-breaking fiery day in early July, I came to the realization that I have a story to tell.
I will not take it to my grave. I’ll slit my wrist and let the words gush from my veins. I won’t stop until my body is bone dry. Until journals are busting at the seams. And cocktail napkins are wet with fresh ink. Until notebooks are overstuffed and bloated. And every last pencil is worn down to just a nub.
And this story, my story, is heard.
The artist sees the world in colors and patterns. In strokes and palettes and angles. The photographer, in depth and light and shadows. The musician, in strums and beats and rhythms.
And the writer sees the world in hyperbole and parables. In memoirs and fantasies. In fact and fiction and monologue and dialogue. Every action with an adverb. Every object with an adjective. Every emotion with a metaphor. Every moment dusted with allusions and alliteration.
And as life speeds by, the writer can barely process any of it, because the brain is trying desperately to find all the write words.
There are so many things to consider when selecting a new journal. The look of the cover. The number of pages. The feel of the paper. The distance between the lines. And whether or not they call to you to write in them.
But most importantly, the weight of each individual page. Are they substantial enough to hold all the words that will inevitably come, looking for a place to stay?
writeamuck 