The Tale of the Warm and Cool

I don’t understand about complementary colors
And what they say
Side by side they both get bright
Together they both get gray

But he’s been pretty much yellow
And I’ve been kind of blue
But all I can see is
Red, red, red, red, red now
What am I gonna do…
-Fiona Apple

I used to think that I knew everything about art, drawing and painting.

No, I take that back. I knew that I knew everything about art.

Logically, I understood that I didn’t have the technical or formal training to call myself an artist in the traditional, degreed sense. I haven’t studied at the finest schools (for art) or even, truly, taken a comprehensive, long-term line of courses, nor have I truly mastered the barest fundamentals of color, shadow, and light theory. Most of my works, to me in hindsight, seem to be a random array of a specific set of primary colors, ignoring the many thousands of neutrals and nuances between and within.

But I have always had an eye.

I am serenely aware of my simplicity, even once thought it to be my signature. I know how to arrange shapes and color through a trickery of spacial decisions; where to add splashes of red, where to leave a little bare canvas; how to disguise my lack of experience with an abundance of raw, unfettered instinct. I used my gift for prose and transcribed it onto the canvas. I knew that this was me, a part of me, everything of me, in two-dimensional form. I know what looks good and what makes sense, and that’s all that ever mattered. I was happy in my unattended bliss and everyone around me was charmed by my irreverent splatters and, even when they weren’t, I didn’t let it affect me much longer than an afterthought, as I considered it more of a reflection on their tastes than mine.

This, if nothing else, was my thing.

Then, one day, none of that was true anymore.

The rules were the same. The colors were the same. The canvas was as blank and open as ever…but I was different. Suddenly, or perhaps not-so-suddenly, all of it felt empty…like some vast, pleasant game of paint-by-numbers. Everything meant more, weighed more heavily on my brush, and the confidence I once had, once took so easily for granted, was just gone…for no reason other than my own negligence or lack of discernment…and, if only just a little (but just enough), fear…

So I’m going back to class; laying down a stronger foundation; taking the time to learn about the history of what I do and what compels me to do it. I cannot live off the ache or the instinct alone…it’s too volatile, too unstable. And when that class is over, I’ll take another one, and another one…and another one; because truly, if you’re living right, the learning never really ends.

Class #2: Neutrals

Top 10 Things Learned From This Year’s Failed Relationship

10. Beware of anyone who offers the World to you; and don’t believe a word until you get it in writing (and notarized).

9. Heartbreak is, of all things, a double-edged betrayal; a betrayal from the object of your affection for the pain they have dealt you…and a betrayal from yourself, for having loved them.

8. Bitterness is the heady wine we press our lips to in the wake of the stunning sobriety of love’s (mis)calculations.

7. When I was a child, I wished for protection; as a young woman, I dreamed of true love; now in my adulthood, I want for nothing more than to provide those things for myself–and to someone else.

6. You cannot skip the pain that inevitably comes with such a fragile practice; and if, by some miracle, you manage to do so, you have also averted knowledge, healing, and opportunity.

5. Be weary of anyone who offers advice on love, for no one who truly understands anything of the matter would ever claim to be an expert.

4. Love is the easiest emotion in the catalogue; it’s the relationships built upon it that take every bit of your resources.

3. Promises within the context of love are much like secrets within the context of politics: easy to keep, until you actually need to keep them.

2. The question is not, “Would I do it all differently, knowing what I now know?”, but “What must I do differently next time, knowing what I now know?”

1. Anything is possible; nothing is forever.

Requiem: August 11, 2004

Requiem: August 11, 2004*

New jobs begin. Old relationships die. And in the middle? The World keeps turning, oblivious to everything but its own pain, its own laughter and insidious fears.

It doesn’t matter–none of it. It’s all the same in the end. That’s the great big cosmic joke–the cosmic “mystery”. Red and green and yellow and white and blue and purple and orange–it always ends up as a pile of gray.

Nothing ever changes. In the end, I will always be alone–no matter which door I pick, no matter how “right” my decision. The ending is always the same, and those small moments that glimmer with possibility do not shine enough light on this bleak existence.

I am empty now.

Every step forward is in spite of what my heart, body and sometimes mind screams: let go.

It feels like it’s all over, all of it…and every stupid moment that I continue is borrowed from some parallel universe, where all of my self-preservation and smiles are stored. I’ve consistently banged my head against this glass ceiling over and over again–and the only way through may not be worth the trip for all the damage it’ll inflict.

…And so I keep breathing, because the only things left are good memories–and hope, though they keep flickering on and off like lightning bugs, caught in an airless jar.

PRESENT DAY:
*In the midst of self-doubt, shattered self-esteem, fear and uncertainty, I can see that though times have not changed much, I have. Though hope is all but gone, I now know that if I hold on long enough, I’ll get it back one day, much as my ability to love and trust. Isn’t that the true meaning of faith…and enduring belief in the face of all doubt and void? I will come out of this better than I started, and I will waste no time trying to fight the impending pain that inevitably comes with personal progress.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.
-Shawshank Redemption