“Would anyone know?” If I were to buy a plastic, mass produced, artist palette from China to hold the paint that I applied to my next painting, would it make a significant difference to the outcome?
I suppose it was my grandfather who first taught me that I must be that anyone. Riding on his tractored lap, I asked if it mattered if the rows were straight? Yes, he said. To who? I asked. To me, he said, it matters to me. And so it was on the farm. For everything. To act like it mattered, like it all mattered, even when you were the only one in the field, under the apple tree, or resting on the front stoop.
So I take the time, and not the chance. I make a template on my computer. I cut the wood to fit my hand. I sand, and sand again. Because I am the one. It is my soul, that transfers from heart to thumb to wood to brush to canvas. I am the anyone that cares. And this is not a burden, but a gift. For this and every question of the day that begins with, “Who is going to…” — (I look to the gentle wood that reminds me) — Let it be me!
On my way out of the art store yesterday, I saw it, the “Color of the Year.” And the first thing I wondered is, (I’ve always wondered) who decides?
We were asked on the playground. In the classroom. By adults. Our friends. It was one of the most frequent and popular questions — “What’s your favorite color?” I suppose people thought it was such an easy question. No thought or controversy. Just simple. And I listened to them pull the answers out of the their holster so quickly, with such fluidity, such ease – Blue! Red! Orange! Bang!
Why couldn’t I do that? Why did I have to give it so much thought. Why, at even five or six did I struggle? Who could pick I thought? All the colors – they had so much importance! Yellow for when I needed cheering. Blue for calm. Green was a longing for bare toes in the grass. Tans for the gravel that led me home. No one wanted to hear that. The thoughts raced through my brain — just shoot, I thought, pull the trigger – just say blue! But I couldn’t. I loved them all too much. So I began explaining to the blank faces, the eye rolls, the far off stares, the backs walking away.
And maybe I wouldn’t have had the courage, but for Grandpa Rueben. He listened. He looked directly at me. And if he were to walk away, his hand always extended back. He knew. He told me, often. You decide. Whatever the situation, he repeated it — “You decide.”
The world has always tried to direct, but now more than ever, we are bombarded by “influence.” (My apologies to Dominique, he hates the word.) And I’m still wondering, why on earth do we need it? Why do we need someone to tell us our favorite color. Moreover, why do we even need a favorite? We get to decide. Daily. We get to grow and change and love what we love, who we love, when we love. Neither my heart, nor my palette can be boxed in.
You can choose Mocha Mousse for your favorite color this year, if that’s what it actually is — if you love it, really love it — but remember, you get to decide! And you get to change your mind. You get to be you! Bang!
It’s no surprise when my color palette sneaks from canvas to canvas. It happens quite often. When painting in blues, I gravitate from sea to sky for several images. Currently I’m in the greens. All colors are available all the time — one could be grabbed as easily as the next. But I think it’s because of what I see. After painting Margaux on the balcony of Marseille, the greens of bush and tree were everywhere. The light that changed this one green from yellow to nearly black, was called to me. Greeting me from the breakfast window, on to the morning path…everywhere a welcoming. You could say, “Well, sure, it’s France, it’s beautiful…” and yes, that’s true. But it’s not the first time I have been carried in this palette, lifted by this light.
My basement bedroom in Alexandria, Minnesota — yellow and green. It was the first time I got to choose my palette. From carpet to bedspread, that one windowed room gleamed bright with possibilities. I’m not sure it was even a year. The house was sold. The neighborhood got small in the rearview window of the small moving van. We left without bed or spread, but the color remained. It still does.
I suppose it’s always been about what you choose to see. Loss or opportunity. Pain or growth. Because within every palette of life’s journey there is the spectrum of color. The same green is lit bright, or shaded black. Knowing you can’t see one without the other.
I can’t tell you what everyone sees. But I know it’s different. This is painfully clear from the daily news. From balcony to gravel, we all have a different view, a different perspective, a varying palette. But maybe the “them” and “us” of it all could be replaced with just different shades of green. And we could see each other, really see each other, as we navigate from color to color, sharing this palette, chasing the light.
Maybe being brave is kind of like love, in the way that you never finish.
I didn’t know much about it then — my grandpa’s farm. I only saw how he changed the colors from season to season. From black to green to gold. He made it look so simple. I suppose we don’t often see people being brave. We just see them doing. But the changing weather must have brought worry. A tractor down, a man short. With each crop something different. He had to keep learning. Adjusting. Every single day.
I think it was the same with my mother. Most only saw the colors. How lovely she looked in her yellow. Her turquoise. Most couldn’t see beyond the popped collar, or ruffled neck, just how brave she was being. I’m not even sure she saw it herself. But I did. I still do.
Sometimes I get impatient with myself. Why do I have to keep tracing over the word brave? Can’t I just be? But in the moments when I let myself step into the beautiful colors of it all, navigating through the brilliance of the day’s challenge, I see it. And I’m ok with the not finishing. I will be brave today. And tomorrow. But I look around and smile, because I’m doing the same with love.
The amount of reasons not to do it had to be plentiful. It could be too dry. Too wet. Too hot. Not warm enough. The tractor could fail. His body could fail. Grain prices out of his control. And yet, I never heard my grandfather complain.
Sitting on his overalled lap at the card table he only spoke of the current hand he was playing. He and the chosen three adults laughed, accused, pointed, shook heads in knowing victory, slapped losing cards on the table, and kept playing. Oh how they loved to play cards after a full day of farming. And when the sun came up the next day, he walked past the card table, pocketed his pipe, and went to the field that was given, worked it accordingly, without complaint. Each year turning it from brown, to green, to gold.
Yesterday at our family gathering, (a multi-national event), I was speaking with my German niece in English in the French countryside. “I don’t have enough time,” she said. “And I’m sort of afraid,” she continued. “And I could fail…” She offered up reason after reason not to paint, even though she claimed she wanted to. She was looking so far ahead. Beyond canvases painted, sold and shipped. A business created, and what if that failed, all before a brush or tube was even purchased. “You could just paint a picture,” I said. I could hear my grandfather’s voice deep from within.
He never played next year’s hand. He farmed in the day that was given. What a lesson to be learned. I remind myself constantly. Because I, at times, can get way too far ahead of myself as well… with all the what ifs of tomorrow. But really, we only have this day. And I choose to make something of it.
It occurs to me as I’m typing this, the answer to one of her questions. I told her I was working in my favorite palette. Stroke by stroke in these moody, earthly colors. She asked why I loved it. It’s so clear to me today, it’s the hand I was given.
