Could my mother hit a proper note? Not that often. But OH, how she could carry one! I loved to sing with her. To fill up an empty Sunday afternoon with song…lyrics and melodies that weaponed, staved off even, loneliness or doubt… music that set aside the worry of beginning a new week, and just let this moment hover, gather, and embrace in the now, well, that was pure magic, in any key. We sang from the depths of our souls, asking the questions, demanding, willing, daring the answers to hop on notes and dance in the air.

I could tell the mood by the cd that was placed. K.D. Lang’s “Ingénue” would start with the why, and end with the why not. Questions were asked, “Where is your head, Katherine?” “Why hurt yourself?”. Into soul pleading realizations, fists clenched, bent at waist, head raised to the air, “Fate must have a reason. Why else endure the season of hollow soul?” I couldn’t even hear Miss Lang over my mother’s journey of survived and victorious anguish. And then she would become, I would become, Miss Chatelaine. Because having lived through it all, each improper note, didn’t she, we, deserve the becoming! And so we would! No longer bent, but reaching. “I have lived just for this…” Yes! Sweet and glorious yes! “I can’t explain,” we sang, “why I become Miss Chatelaine.”

I have been listening to, well, singing along with, this album while painting all of these women. And I think maybe, as I sing the words, as I dance the paint brush, all of the becoming, from my mother’s voice, to mine, to the painting, all of the notes sung by heart, (and by heart), live inside these portraits, and when you look, really look, you see her, me, yourself, and all of the beauty, hope and desire. And whether you call it by her name, or your own, you become….you become Miss Chatelaine.