It took a long time for me to grow into my mother’s face. The first time someone said it, you look just like your mother, it was as if I found my way home. Amid all the impermanence of driveways and houses. Of streets and cities and doors opening and closing, I had the permanence of knowing where I came from. And with that, the knowledge that I could go anywhere, be anyone. 

And if my mother looked like her father, then how could I not find comfort in my grandfather’s portrait? 

Yesterday, I was showing new friends of the family some of my paintings. This is my grandfather, I said in a new language. In a different country. And still, when they saw him, this man who looked like my mother, who looked like me, I felt they saw a little bit more of my heart. And I was a part of the palette. I was home.