MeliGoesRogue

One ear filled with music and the other open to the melody of the rain falling on the canvas umbrella that covers me. The words tonight seeking to let out. My music and movie selection always opening doors typically shut. I have begun my confession, finding love and acceptance instead of the judgment I have for so many years feared. Lies have lived so deep within that they had become truth.

I have never considered myself an artist. I have defined it by those with paint on their hands and clothes and a resulting image open for all to see. Many years ago on the deck of a home that was not my own in a state that was foreign to me I found the story of the pearl earring. I so young and filled with fear could see only her, I was Griet. Willing to succumb to the commands of the master, the artist. The melody of each changing scene and the evolution of the character becoming my mirror. The symphony of instruments played in perfect harmony swirling in my head each night before bed. As the scenes of my life have changed my image of her has not. Tonight it did. It was no longer the pearl earring in my lobe that I longed for.

It has been years since I have sat before them and watched their eyes exchange glances, tonight the hiatus was over. As the familiar instruments descended upon the screen my eyes no longer sought her face, she had become secondary to him…Jan the artist. I could see myself in him, unsatisfied and self conscious of that which others had proclaimed to be finished and without error. I could see the painted over chair legs at the bottom of the painting and in my minds eye I could see the evolution of this creation. Every stroke of the brush was a piece of him immortalized in canvas. That is why it needed to be perfect, it could not be undone once the veil had been lifted and the eyes of others fell upon it.

I have begun a new painting of my own, my paints the words against the white canvassed screen. Each keystroke drawing me deeper into the colors in my soul, allowing the light to strike and create shadows and depth. Like that pearl earring, everything flows easily, there is no forcing the truth. She is like water overflowing from the faucet, she does not obey the bowl she is poured into, she will continue to pour until she begins to flow over the sides, seeping into each crevice and leaving her mark on each surface. Any pause I have taken has never been for the lack of words, but rather a momentary lack of courage to immortalize them. Each prick of the needle brining forth but a drop of blood and leaving behind the indelible mark of its passage.

I have long feared the memories that have been so tightly buried and yet now, in the rain I fear only the thought of holding them much longer. Now comes the difficult part, the self care. Enjoying the right to care for myself with no motivation other than my fulfilling my own needs. Not the ones that for so long could only be filled by others. My need for solitude grows and yet with it grows the need for those to walk quietly beside me. To offer care and warmth only when requested. This a larger feat than the sentence that describes it.

The fruits of this journey have already begun to reveal themselves. So I press on in the hopes of seeing more of this bundle unravel and those who would spend hours on the phone with me as I work thru the pieces that fall out. Timing I am finding is everything. The palms nod their acknowledgment to me as they blow in the night breeze. The end of the page drawing near.

“Here in the dark, I will rise, I will rise again. A humble seed with grow”