Dreama’s Diary–January 20
I look at my wrists and my hands. Each tiny scar holds a story. One chunky line on the middle finger came from a drug store. I was four and dragged my hand along a glass shelf, unaware that a jagged piece would snag it. The large clerk scooped me into his fatherly arms and rushed me to the counter. I sat there staring at my Mary Jane shoes as he bandaged my finger with gauze and talked to me in a low, soothing voice. He brushed my hair from my eyes and blotted my tears with a tissue. My mother, who had left me on the toy aisle, came running over when she saw a line of blood leading all the way to where I sat. I liked that my well being mattered.
Other scars have come from my brutal hand, but no clerk ever appeared with tender words again. I would weep alone in my little hell, just my anger and me.
What drives me to this strange ritual? A lot of things, I suppose. Mostly, I learned it from my mother. At times, a refined lady. At other times, a person fighting in a web of fury. Creating a work of art takes genius, inspiration and passion. So when caught up in the fire of creation that drove her like a woman obsessed to give form to an unknown feeling or image, she would try and try to make reality out of an inner vision. It eluded her, so she fought to capture it like lost in a higher realm out of reach. Her spirit needed to speak through her art, but it was as if the language was forgotten. This tormented her. Her arthritic hands became an enemy and yet she depended on them to unleash her raging passion. She’d cut herself, and I, a child, would crudely bandage them for her.
But this was real, and the horror of it stayed with me. Later, I would ask her why she did it. Her answer was this. Life surged through her and she longed to capture its essence on canvas so that the sight would satisfy some need in her soul, the need to emulate something within, but on earth. I don’t think that is the whole truth. I think she had the same heartbreaks as me, always falling for unrequited love and its aftermath.
I need to stop reaching for what isn't there. It's time to find real people and real life, and not fantasy.