I had a rather turbulent relationship with my mother. Not uncommon, I know.
She was creative and artistic in a big way; she was also a perfectionist so she rarely enjoyed her talent because of the unrealistic expectations that come along with perfectionism, the feeling of never being "good enough"-- the robber of joy. As one of her projects, I often felt I was not good enough ... but then I conjured up a bunch of Muses to tell me the things I needed to hear, which became my first book and a leap in healing. Writers and imaginative souls do those things.
It took years of practice to adopt the belief that I was enough. It didn't happen over night, but the mind is a malleable instrument and the challenge to defeat your inner foes can be both exhilarating and rewarding - though never a linear progression.
The bond between mom and daughter is charged with emotion no matter what dynamics make up that equation. The relationship I had with my mom contributed to the wisdom I needed to design a creativity coaching training program that teaches people to love the process, stop punishing themselves, and get their asses in gear in a kind, gentle, AND remarkably effective way.
It also inspired countless pieces of writing that helped me heal after she left the planet. Whether or not you believe you are a "writer," writing and any creative process can heal you. When a creative idea grabs hold of me, everything I encounter becomes a canvas for it's exploration. Kandinsky's painting Composition X volunteered itself in that way as a metaphor for mom and me.
There is a page in my mom’s art history book,
it has a background of black,
hosting red and blue and gold
and green squares and points and lines.
The negative space connects
what looks like a fish tail, a book, a hot air balloon,
and a bubble, but one can't really be sure what
occupies this, Kandinsky’s abstract Composition X,
a funny name for a painting that has no X to mark the spot
so that you know where you are
in relationship to the world
or fish tails …
or your mom.
In the painting, there‘s also an
alphabet made of half moons, clotheslines, and empty tic tac toe grids.
When I squint my eyes I see two shapes come forward.
I see my mom and I are floating on the negative space,
trying to communicate with each other in checkerboards and squiggles
and clotheslines,
a language so abstract that neither one of us can be
sure what we are really trying to say.
But it’s clear …
we want to say something.
But then I notice that I am the fishtail swimming out of this painting,
I am the fishtail traveling over the negative space and out of
of Kandinsky’s Composition X,
looking for the painting that tells Y.
(c) jill badonsky
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