Ah, painting... my sweet solace. Blasting, pulsing music blaring from my room's speakers; smeared paint on faces, on canvas, on palates; the scent of acrylics in the air; sleeves rolled up to my elbows; glasses off, contacts on; thoughts of profits gone from my head; emotions running safely wild in my solitude.
Peace at last.
I let my long suppressed feelings bleed onto the canvas, filling it with bursts of light and dark that intermingle in a tango of intellectual conversation; the merits of compassion twisting into a spiral of thought and paint. At last I can be myself and figure my often impassioned questions out in a way that only I could understand. My work will be a story for only my eyes.
Sometimes, like now, I let my eyes close as I make a brush stroke, creating an arc of white triumph on my page. I fill the space around it and find myself drawing my family crest. Here it looks big and hulking, backed by dark greys and whites. My white arc, now surrounded by beautiful shining colors, looks strangely appropriate. I feel a smile ghost over my lips, letting the near-forgotten feeling of euphoria fill my consciousness.
This is why I love to paint. This joy and unrealized wisdom that fills my mind is like a drug that I crave with every pore of my being. This is peace, my peace.
A throat clears, my head snaps to face the source of the noise.
"Father?" I say in surprise. Why does this man interrupt my moment? What will he think?
"I didn't realize how important your hobby was to you." he says.
"I love to paint. This is my first real canvas. The rest have been in books."
I do love painting, although I would never be able to do it everyday. The reason my painting is so special is because it is my emotional release. If I did it everyday it would lose its fervor and necessity.
"You're very good at it."
"Thank you. Did you need something?"
"You're music is very, very loud. I can hear it from my office. I texted you to turn it down but you must not have heard your phone."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize how rude I was being."
"Never mind. I do not mind if your music helps you do this."
He gestures to my canvas, and gives a tight-lipped smile. I smile back a bit and point to my sketchbook- a large two by three foot square thing with good quality paper-. I tell him that more of my work is in there. He picks it off my desk carefully, as if he is afraid of breaking it, and flips it open.
"I mostly do impressionism and, well, I suppose they're abstract pieces." I explain as I turn back to my current work. I add a glow to my triumphant arc and begin to shade the crest as my father looks through my book in relative silence.
"You're talented. I'd always known you were artistic but this is more than I'd imagined."
"Thank you. I paint to relax; it's just a hobby."
"Some of these are very dark," he comments as he looks over one of my darker pieces. It is of a girl, staring into a mirror. Tears streak her face and the mirror is cracked beneath her fist, which had been slammed against it. The mirror's cracks spell 'perfect'.
"I get angry just like any other human."
"Some people consider our family inhuman." he muses, smiling a bit as he stares at the girl and her mirror.
"That doesn't surprise me. We don't often act human, do we?" I respond lightly, thinking of the facade I hold up each day.
"Not often. It's a family trait, it seems."
"Except my sister, of course. She must have gotten her exuberance from Mother."
"Your mother certainly wore her heart on her sleeve and I can see you do to when you paint."
"It doesn't matter though, because only a few people will ever see these paintings."
"And I am one of the few?"
"If you want to be."
"If you feel like showing me..."
He chuckles and I feel like a child again. I remember sitting in his lap at five while we drove to some place of another. I had turned to him with an excited expression and shown him my homework. I'd been told to explain my parent's work. I'd drawn a picture of a doctor holding a brief-case and a cellphone. He'd been happy. He'd liked it.
"Maybe I will sometime. It'd be nice to talk about the humanities with you as the economy is a rather depressing and exhausted topic."
He smiles again, a bit like a cat, and says, "I don't bite,"
I chuckle and add, "at least not that hard."
Grimacing smiles of amusement are exchanged at our banter. We're oh so witty today... ha.
He picks up a brush and sighs at my painting.
"I was like you. I painted until university before I got too busy. My parents didn't understand it, but somehow I was quite good. Do me the honor of allowing me to contribute something to this. I know exactly what it lacks." he says slowly; his eyes closing at the thought of his long-forgotton hobby. I nod almost eagerly, more than excited to see what he will do.
He takes some pale glowing white-yellow and begins to circle my arc in graceful spirals that seem to glow with something that I can't trace. Perhaps the glow is pride? Love? I wouldn't know, and he will not explain, I'm sure.
My arc is now intertwined with the glowing twist like two braided cords of platinum chain. I think in my heart I know what the meaning is but I do not wish to say it aloud just yet.
"It's perfect, Father." I say slowly.
"Mmmn..." he sighs, "do you understand it all now?"
"We are a family."
"Yes."
The family that paints together stays together?
A/N: Um... christmas present? I'm not sure how i feel about this piece. It's not like my usual stuff somehow and the very idea is weird. If it sucks too badly I'll take it down. Sorry...