Painting Happiness

Tonight's the revolution.
Tonight I shrug off the blues and get to work painting the last two little "gift" paintings that I'm doing for my support group so that I can move on to the other work.
I'm going to pick up my brush and spread thankfulness and love instead of mere paint.
I'm going to daub on chunks of happiness and drip some joy.
As I said last night, happiness is a choice.
And I'm choosing it.
I'm still alone, but I'm going to fight back against the sadness.
I'm going to create my own happiness.
I'm going to nurture my own sense of peace and goodwill.
I'm slinging these words around like spackling, and if I keep it up the meaning of it will be lost.
Sometimes you can ruin a beautiful piece of art just by fiddling around a little too long, trying to polish it up for others to see.
It's better to keep it raw, keep it real, to present it as an unblemished representation of what you've got inside you.
One of the most wonderful things about artwork is that you can say some really hard things, instantly and urgently, without opening your mouth at all.
And one of the even more wonderful things about artwork is that another human being has only to take a glance and have an instant reaction.
One of the mysteries of artwork is how it means one thing to me when I paint it, but when I pass it along to someone else it can take on an entirely different meaning.

When I painted Joy, the woman I gave it to saw the love of her sister-in-law speaking to her from beyond the grave.
Even more mysterious is the way that my artwork creates a bridge between me and other people, a silent but strong understanding between us of something either tragic or beautiful that draws them into the painting in such a way that they can both interpret it using their own experience and also understand my experience.
A connection.
Contact.
And a new bond is formed.
It was Gandhi who said, "Find yourself in the service of others," and his words repeatedly prove themselves to be true in my life.
It's especially powerful when I paint something specific for a person I've gotten to know quite well, such as any member of the support group.
One woman has had a very hard life and struggles daily against a disease that she knows is going to win out in the end.
We have absolutely nothing in common. In an ordinary setting, I might have no reason to address this woman -- Actually not much chance of ever having met her at all. My life takes me places far from her world. But over time, as I hear her story, I feel a powerful empathy with her capacity to love people who can never love her back.
So when I paint something for her, a simple something just as a keepsake, I make certain that it will tell her what is good about her and about her life. I will tell her with my painting that she is beautiful, that what I see inside her is stronger and more compassionate than what she sees herself. I give her the painting, and with it my friendship. It's a gift to me as much as it is to her. It changes both our lives.

I know from the group a young father who struggles with alcoholism. He doesn't have custody of his son and doesn't see him regularly, but he loves that child with a fierce determination that I know there is no power strong enough to keep him from being there for that child... except his own weakness. He bolters himself up with anger and despair.
I know those feelings. I know the anger of having my children taken from me, the grief of shuttling them back and forth and trying not to hurt or confuse them by my determination not to get myself entangled with their father, or anyone else like him, ever again.
I know the kind of people I want my children to be when they grow up, and I know that it's my responsibility to finish college, get a good job, follow my dreams, and find a proper life partner, because this is the only way they're ever going to know how to do it.
I don't judge him for his addiction. The things that have happened to me in my lifetime have stripped me of many of my self-righteous judgements from the past. I understand now that we all have our demons, we all have bits and pieces of our pasts dogging us incessantly. We all struggle in that space between where we are and where we want to be -- of who we are and who we want our loved ones to think we are.
I ran up to him after the group last week and pressed the painting into his hands, breathlessly explaining that I made it for him and I hoped that he'd take it in the spirit it was intended and not feel that I was judging him, because I was so not judging him -- and I think on his face I saw something for a moment that wasn't angry, just lonely and afraid. He was touched, and he thanked me.
I told him that simply by caring so strongly for that little boy, he is a good parent. He cares. That's a whole lot more than a lot of children have. I told him that he's good enough, that he tries hard, and so long as he doesn't quit that will be enough. I'm hoping it will be enough.

One woman from the group has a processing disorder. I think nine or ten months ago I would have had no idea what this was, but now that I've been mildly brain damaged (or severely, if you take into consideration the 47 point drop from the car accident), I know now that it's a condition in which you see and process everything differently than the rest of the world.
In her case, I see that she is almost constantly all keyed up, tensed and harsh in her effort to push the world back a little so as not to become overwhelmed.
But her love of music is her salvation, her peace and her soul, so I painted for her a reminder.
I think her harsh, anxious voice would have once been all it took for me to want to avoid her, but I know now what it is to have the world press at me from all sides to the point that I can't think and I feel far too much. I can relate to having grown up in such an invalidating environment that I'm constantly wired up, waiting for the next attack instead of being myself and minding to my life with no concern for the judgements of others. But I think at one time it was me who did the judging, and it's a little bit as if these paintings are my way of making amends.

This painting on the left was for the woman who seemed every day to fall deeper and deeper into that dark place I could now traverse with my eyes closed.
I saw her flirting with death, lying stranded on the island of her depression thinking that no one would miss her after she was gone. I knew that darkness, and I couldn't stand seeing her sink into it week after week.
I told her one week that I'm beginning to find that the most depressed or otherwise mentally ill people that I meet are nearly always also the most creative and funny people that I know, and in a hollow voice she said, "Yeah. I'm sure they said that about Robin Williams -- 'Oh, you're so funny! I'll bet everyone loves you....'"
I think if I had passed her on the street I would never have known how much she hated herself and how sick she was of living alone and in pain. I would have seen a smiling, laughing person with a great sense of humor and a keen wit, gregarious and seemingly well-loved.
I wouldn't even have known that she needed me.
She wouldn't have known it, either.
In fact, I'd often felt a sort of distance between us, a sense from her of being held at arm's length.
Every week I would come dreading that she might not be there this time, might not be anywhere anymore.
I painted her this picture. I gave it to her and watched as a flood of happiness flashed over her features.
And now she smiles every time she sees me.
We smile at each other because we understand each other now.
She knows that I care and understand.
I've caused her to care and understand me as well.

And now for the woman whom I've known the longest, the sweet, kind, mild-mannered woman with the big heart and the gaping wounds of verbal abuse and invalidation pulling her to her knees. Her label is Bipolar Disorder, but she is not a label -- She is a human being. She is smart and funny and friendly, but she seems to think, as so many women do, that she is stupid and silly and not worth very much at all. She has good days and bad days -- Days she stays in bed, days where she could clean and organize and otherwise fix the entire world.
She is troubled by these boxes of things that she would like to sort and get rid of the bulk of, troubled week after week, for the entire year that I've known her. It sounds like those boxes never get done.
Once I offered to come out and help her, but she looked so horrified at the idea of me seeing how she lived that I changed the subject and never offered again.
She has an irrational fear of homelessness and an ongoing abuse of herself for being too ill to work.
She lives with her aging father, who sounds to me like the most miserably manipulative person I've ever heard of. She has sisters who won't help her but are always quick to judge the job that she's doing, and the fact that she doesn't have an official job that makes her any money. She seems so beaten down by her life, but more and more she comes into our group and displays a tremendous capacity for love, strength, humor and grace.
If only she could free herself of the people who drag her down.
She longs to be free but is frightened to death of it.
And I understand.

The only group member remaining is the one I have had the hardest time understanding. She came to the group with ropey scars marring her wrists, a flat, expressionless voice and a body that seemed to have eaten the real her alive, and was now just masses of flesh.
I couldn't stop looking at those scars. At first she spoke very little, but those scars spoke volumes.
The only other thing I knew right away was that she loved cats with the same passion as I had loved them when I was ten. Cat earrings, cat binder, cat notepaper...
I thought there was nothing the two of us could possibly share. She was desperately afraid of being left alone, and possibly even more afraid of being alone in a crowd. She ate and cut and bought things to stuff down her pain and self-hatred.
I understood that kind of pain.
Hell, if I'd ever had any kind of money I would have bought things to ease my own pain. Sometimes I buy things that I can't afford, and those times are always when I'm feeling lonely and depressed. I feel as if they'll cheer me up, but they never do for long.
In time I learned that she's funny -- Oh, probably the funniest one of all, because her humor is so sarcastic and her punchlines delivered with deadpan accuracy every time. I didn't have to think twice about what to paint for her, but it took me a long time to find the right words to go with it. We're so different in so many ways, and she has always been so careful to choose words that never entirely give her away. I look at those scars, and I don't have to ask what she's hiding.
And all I can do is paint her a picture and hope it eases her pain.
It's all very well that my artwork makes me feel happy as I'm working on it, but ultimately it's more about who I'm painting it for.
On nights like last night, I think I need for someone to notice my pain, someone to make or give something to me so that I know they understand.
But on nights like tonight, I realize again that I notice my pain. My pain is real because I feel it, and not because someone else does or does not understand it. I understand. And I can make and give what I need to myself.
I can paint happiness.
That's such a great gift, and you'd be surprised how often I forget that, how often I devalue myself and tell myself that I have nothing to contribute to this world.
Like they say, we are all facing some kind of battle, and that is why it's so destructive when we judge other people. In so doing, we are also placing a judgement upon ourself.
Only when we strive to understand the experiences of others do we completely understand ourselves. This is because we are nothing if not part of the world that we live in, in connection with the people around us. If we can understand them, if we can make an effort not to judge them, then maybe we could show that same kindness toward ourselves.
Maybe