I think I get it now. What he saw. What wasn’t yet there.

The commitment of painting flowers begins in the shadows. In the black. I suppose the desire will always be there, to begin with the popping of the petals, but it’s impossible to paint that way, backwards. They, like all of us I suppose, have to come through. 

Finishing the larger of the two paintings, I was there. Not just in the shadows, but in the dirt. The black dirt. The empty field, with my grandfather. 

I was always amazed at what he could do. Taking the black, turning it to green, and then gold. What I thought was magic, was maybe artistry. Or maybe they are one and the same. Maybe that’s humanity itself. Being able to see beyond. To sit what isn’t yet there. 

Could I be painting the flowers without his vision? Or my grandmother’s in the kitchen. Or my mother’s in her closet? Maybe I only see, because I was seen. I awake from the shadows, because of them.