Open Hands

As Tony and I shared on our last podcast, we are working through week one of ‘The 100 Day Project.’ It’s technically day 8 but I am actually officially on day 7 because I decided to do a collaboration with my friend and writer Christian Canady.

Christian is responding to a single word with her words and I am responding to her words with an image painted the day after she posts her finished piece. Last year I painted 100 days of ‘ordinary objects’ and this year isn’t as straightforward. Some days an object jumps out at me, like the sunglasses on day 1. Some days, however, are more complex.

Day 5 presented me with the word ‘wait’ and although there were a few ‘objects’ in Christian’s words, I really wanted to express the larger concept because I loved the entirety of the piece. But how does one illustrate ‘wait?’

I’m going to let you on a ‘not so secret ‘ secret.

Most days when I face a blank page I question my skills and overall general ability to paint at all. I have to work through it. Literally every time. I get about 10 minutes into the drawing and I realize I’ve been holding my breath. I relax and exhale. Then, I drop my shoulders and take a few more lungfuls of air. By the time I pick up my paints I am enjoying the process. But I have to choose it. And move through the fear. Every single time. 

I decided to pursue illustration (or at least do it A LOT more) at the age of 42. Sometimes I wonder if I would be less anxious if I had decided to go to art school when I was younger or if I had more technical skills or a better understanding of… something. Something that I’m lacking. Something I’m missing.

So I sit down to illustrate ‘wait’ and I am confronted by all those fears. So much of my existence I feel I am waiting to find that thing that will finally make me the artist, the friend, the daughter, the girlfriend that will be … good enough. I have been fighting those voices a lot lately. They have been exacerbated and magnified by this quarantine. This time of slowing… this time of sitting with... this time of waiting.

BUT I have also been choosing to believe that I am enough; that I can let go of those false expectations, those comparisons, and those voices telling me that I need to be different to be enough. 

So I chose to illustrate ‘wait’ by drawing hands, wide open. For me, they are hands of surrender. They are hands letting go of all the things I am not, and working to accept exactly what I am and what is. This season is forcing us to do that on so many levels, whether we like it or not. Whether we choose it or not. I will continue to try to keep my hands open. I hope that for you too.

I have included my image and the entire essay from Christian below:

wait

But, what do you wait for?

Are you waiting to get back to important work? To put some money back in your account? Are you waiting for the restaurants and bars to re-open so you can sit once again among strangers and feel the waves of their talk wash over you?

Do you wait to be with family, to see your friends? Are you waiting for the fear to subside as the normalcy returns? Are you waiting to travel, to get away or get home?

Look just beyond your four walls. Do you feel the calm? The ground on which we rest also must rest. Perhaps she has been waiting for this moment. Perhaps while we wait, there are things that awaken and are renewed.

Let her rest. Let the sky clear and the rivers fill with the winter runoff. Let the birds move unhindered to settle in their summer homes. Let the water run from the faucet through your fingers and wait to be reminded of the last time you saw water that was not coming out of a pipe.

Lick the salt from your lover’s skin, hold the baby, moon gaze. Remember when you were a child and the moon looked back; followed the car home?

Are you still waiting?

Here’s a thought: All of those millions of us who do not have enough shelter, food, companionship or peace; they have been waiting for ages, and it is foolish to forget that we have been waiting with them.

Until this beautiful planet and all who live with her have what they need—waiting will be our fate.

So, take this moment, this rare moment in which we are all forced to feel what is at the heart of our shared experience. Wonder at it. Ask yourself what we are waiting for. And tomorrow, when you wake up on Easter morning, know that this does not have to be our fate. For every time you answer your longing for wholeness, you answer for us all.