This painted page is from my monthly online Journal Workshop called A Lovely Dream. Watch the making of this painting in real time with step by step commentary by me by joining my class. New videos every single month.
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It all started with a pretty little song by Death Cab For Cutie called Soul Meets Body and the lyrics:
you're the only song I want to hear.
Which could be about romance but also about loosing my dad, which, even though I really set out to make a happy journal page, I'm still plagued to live out in my art it seems. I want to hear my dad's voice more than I've wanted to hear anything in my life. Even if it was him fighting with mom, or talking to the Fox News Channel, or lecturing me on paying attention to my bookkeeping, all the things that I thought built a wedge between us I would gladly endure just to hear the sweetest sound, his voice.
For sure. It sucks. You think you kow but you don't know. Because you will miss everything about them. Even the uncomfortable conversations. Even the fights. I have never longed to hear someones voice as I long to hear his right now.
I am in a coffee shop in Minneapolis sucking on a mocha my butt in a high wooden chair, my feet dangling above the ground. Jason leaves to go to the restroom and I eye a man in the corner of the room. About 70. He's looking at a laptop in front of him , buds in his ears. I picture this as my dad if dad left the house more. If he were younger and not sick he'd have ordered an expresso and read recovery books. There were no coffee shops when he went to AA. only diners. He would have loved coffee shops and AA life.
Jasons a quick pee-er and isn't gone long but in that time I cry. Grieving in public is a phenomena I haven't known before. I can sob hard and deep internally inside my chest and only a small tear will shed. And I can shut it off on a dime when someone comes back.
It's as if every 70 year old man is my father. But their voice is not his voice.
"A scratching voice all alone is nothing like your baritone." Ed Vedder
I keep going back and forth to what tattoo I want for my birthday. At first I thought it was the simple:
A L I V E
to remind myself that I am. Then I thought I'd get an elaborate thing on my chest right below my neck that says:
The Wound Is The Place Where Light Enters - Rumi
so everyone walking towards me could have hope. But now I don't know.
This is my place. The walls are thick and I can't hear neighbors or the highway. It's the first consistent silence I've had since he died. Right now I am curled up against the wall sitting on a purple floor cushion, knees up and notebook on my lap. I am far away from everything I have ever known, but there is no way back. My family home is empty. The only things to remain there are ghosts.
