My Canvas

I don't know what more I can say about life. It is painful, unpredictable, unfair, coarse and cruel. At the same time there are moments where we find glimpses of what life's original intention was. We see beauty and balance, mystery and love, expression and creativity.


If I were to paint my life on a giant blank canvas, the background would be black. It seems that no matter the occasion or emotion, black goes with everything. There would be red somewhere- hidden perhaps. The secret pains and bloodshed hidden away from the prying eyes of onlookers who, unintentionally, have no hope of understanding who I am or what I feel. I would paint a giant cross across my canvas- for I am who my God has created. I am a passionate believer in people, beings and things that are far greater than I could ever hope to be. My God, my Jesus is responsible for my salvation. He saved me and continues to save me, even after I make mistake after mistake. My religion and my beliefs play a principal role in the definition of my character and who I will ultimately become. I would paint people- thousands of people -spanning back into the ever-reaching distance of the paint-drenched fibres. I am nothing without the people in my life. My family, my friends, all who have come before me and who resulted in me and all who will follow me as a result of me. Man was not meant to roam the world alone and I think I am the kind of person who feels that very strongly. I very easily fall into a trap of loneliness. I love the company of others and I love to love others. People are my soul food. Without other people, whose lives could I then do my best to impact upon? Dripping vertical lines of blue edged in an off-white would trail down my life's painting. These are the tears- happy and sad- that I have cried. Those moments where I lay heartbroken wondering what had brought me to this place and what had ushered my deservedness for the pain that my reality had so abruptly thrust upon me. Those moments where you laugh so hard your stomach hurts and tears pour down your face in an attempt to cool your heated cheeks as the laughter spills across your lips. Those moments where you look into your best friend's eyes, knowing that they are doing something wrong in the eyes of Something more powerful than either of you can comprehend, and crying because you might not see them again after Death has dealt his cards and judgement has been made... The tears pour down even after your eyes have dried- in your mind where the thought remains for an eternity as an aching scar, you cry for their soul. I would paint upon the remaining black, overlapping the blue streaks and the beam of the cross, velvety-red curtains with a single spotlight at the centre awaiting the opening of a show. I have been blessed with a passion, a creativity and a maturity for performance. I want to be, for once, on a stage where the world can see me and where I can see me and merely be me without judgement or criticism from an audience who just cannot understand what I do. However, I want to be seen and I want to be heard by myself first, before the crowd of critics has their chance to fling stones. 


The final addition, for I cannot bear to think of more of which I could overcrowd the thick oils meshed upon this cloth, is the face of a girl whose eyes are dark from lack of sleep that is so rightly needed, whose mouth is gagged and bound by a dirty white rag signifying her ultimate surrender to all that she simply could not defeat, whose hair lies in a gentle loosely-curled mess around her distraught face and whose tears are red as if her blood was the only thing left that the world could take from her.


--J.