Painting with intangibles

I imagine the way time moves as light paintings in my minds eye. More often than not, I am measuring the aesthetic sensations of time rather than the lines on a clock. I frequently mis-estimate to-do lists and the amount of space in my month that I actually have for making various plans because I am functioning on a emotional relationship with time. 

As the last week of May approached, Memorial day painted lines of light in streaking, neon patterns, like a hyperactive heart throb. Even amongst an undertone of decreasing energy levels that come with working 50 hours in three days, I moved with spark and spunk, fueled by this time-painting. There were small currents of this that we used to survive the frantic beehive of Memorial Day weekend. I see “we” because, it is during the Flea Market more than ever, that a tight-knit camaraderie is felt amongst all people Packwoodian. Whether you are like me, and use the energetic social rush as fuel to get through endless work days or you prefer to hibernate up in the woods for as much of the weekend as possible, a deep pride for this town is felt in the air. 

This year, I continued my commitment to walking into town for work each day in order to avoid the ridiculous traffic. This time, the walk was about twice as long since I’ve been dog-sitting up in High Valley; a good 1-hour walk, one-way. Once downtown, I’d play early-bird substitute for Dean at the Library vendor spaces before rushing across the street for a non-stop day of coffee-making. The evenings were like a perpetual after-party; live band, karaoke, a social drink to end the day just because we could. As tired as we were, the tempo was infectious. 

And just as abruptly, it ceases. 

The painting fragments and bits of charged light become lodged in a frame that feels to small, at least as far as my experience is concerned. The coffee shop is quiet. We have moments to breathe. We are all hobbling about in a sleepy delirium.

And then Thursday came. 

Death has a way of making the world around you eerily beautiful. Particles of time-paintings dissolve. Suddenly there is no other painting except what is; the birds’ chirp, the rumble of the tires down the road, the slam of a door, the plea of a breeze reminding you to be a part of this world that you’ve been living in only half of; the rest has been in those paintings in your mind. 

But now is just now. 

I don’t feel this medium lends itself to a play by play account of this particular Thursday. The life lost was not of someone I was dearly close to, but of someone that carried a charm, generosity and vigor for life that touched everyone around him. And in that respect, the unfolding of how we came to know of his passing was especially jarring; a life story so seemingly graceful and honored deserved a death story of equal grace and honor. 

But death is not a metered art form. For six days, we’d not known. For three of those, I’d walked past that house. In the wake of all of that energy, one light had bled into the abyss of is. 

Patrice was the first to the house and Korreanne and I joined shortly after, before the fire department showed up. They told us we’d probably want to leave when they opened the house but we didn’t really need to be told. We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting together in the sun, myself speaking seldom and soft-spoken. Silence felt like the only gift I had to give. 

How does one grieve? Am I feeding a constructed social reaction to this death? Are these tears a deeper homage? Is there really a time frame for grief like this? Does time disappear? It was almost harder not to have known him better and yet to have still been so close to his passing. I wanted to know what he would have wanted. I wanted to know if he would have demanded that we laugh and celebrate his life? If he would have been moved by the swelling waterworks I was met with when I arrived at the house? 

The lessons of not-knowning never end. He has passed to somewhere he never knew he needed to be. We have been left with yet another mystery of why. 

I slowly began to paint with time again, coming back into that common reality that is so ironically removed from the poignancy of “now”. The experience jarred me away from that frantic reserve from Memorial Day and I now have  been working on a piece constructed of ripples. 

This painting feels busy and expansive but I can’t trace where anything leads. I am dropping a lot of stones and experiences rings of different energy levels and effects before it dissipates. Some of those bigger rings are still growing without direction. I have my focus set in so many different areas when really, they are all a distraction from these acute points of origin. 

But since I don’t count minutes, I have all the time in the world to address that, right?