Once Upon a Time, there was a painting.
I was taking an art class at the time, and the teacher had asked us to paint “two things that we don’t usually see together.”
Me, I wanted to paint the sun.
And so I painted the sun – and added the moon, somewhere in there because hey, you dont often see those two together and so that would take care of the assignment. Then, because this was a time in my life when many questions swirled overhead, I serpentined Rilke’s “Living The Questions” quote around the whole thing, with a nice black felt pen. I liked it.
“Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Do not search for the answers which could not be given you now, because you would not be able to live them and the point is to live everything. So live the questions now. Perhaps then,
some day far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.” – Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet.
In the end, the painting did not make that much sense but somehow, it seemed to both vibrate and soothe – and I was sort of amazed that it had come from me.
I got an A and I hung it in my living room.
A year or so later, I was redecorating and had laid the thick watercolor on the floor while I was figuring out what would go where.
My friend Laurie stopped by and we hugged as she told me about the things unresolved in her heart and about all the questions that lived there, too. About how much it all hurt.
On a whim, I picked up the bright painting and asked her if she would like to borrow it for a while. Her eyes got huge and she looked as though she had fallen in love. She and the painting went home and for over a year, they lived together. She told me often about how it made her so happy, about the tulips she placed right by it and about the way the sun hit it, every evening.
Then, one day, as we were talking, I felt that the painting and its message may no longer be serving her. There she was, still with the questions but not feeling much peace from them. I broached the subject with her, suggesting that maybe it was time to bring my painting back.
She knew what I meant. She knew what I meant and I could tell that she was not easily letting it go.
So I promised her that I would get to work and make her another one. One just for her.
Strangely, when I picked up the painting from Laurie, it seemed much more beautiful than when I had left it with her. It … buzzed, it glowed. It was as though she had somehow infused it with her love for it.
Back at my easel, I created another watercolor for her, hoping that I could make something that would make her happy, in a different way.
I made her “YES.” She had lived the questions a long time and now, maybe she could live the answer. Maybe she could live YES.
And she did. Gracefully and beautifully, as she does most things.
Fast forward another year or so. The newly infused blue painting is over my bed, and even though Laurie sometimes mentions buying it from me, I know that I am not ready to sell it. That really, I may never be. So we talk about getting her a print made some time soon.
A few months ago, she invites me over to her new home, the home that was one of her big new “yeses” and as I walk in, I see “her”painting. Only … it is not really the same painting. I had made it for her and delivered it still wet – and never took the time to really bond with it but I know that Laurie has once again “infused” it.
On that day, it is my turn to fall in love with this one. It is my turn to say … hey, maybe I could have a print?
And this is how, just a few weeks ago, Laurie – after declaring herself my agent – calls me and asks me to meet her at the Center for Happiness, and to bring “the blue painting.” As she walks in, I can see that she is carrying “Yes.” She tells me that “Laura, people need to have these paintings, it’s time for you to start selling them.” She has a plan.
Right then, she pins both watercolors to the walls and seeing both of them together for the first time, I see what she means. They are special, in a way that surprises me. And man… they look incredible on the yellow creamy walls.
Laurie tells me that she is going to order “giclée prints” of each one. Streched on canvas, ready to hang, archival and as she says “there is no glass so they are earthquake proof.” She is ordering one set for her home and one set for the Center. When they are ready, both originals are going back home with me. For good.
A few days ago, she calls me and asks me to meet her at her car. When I get there, she is holding my painting – except it is not my painting. I look at it closely, a little weirded out, and yes, I can see the place where I used a little too much water, the place where I hesitated a little … I can see it all. Every brush stroke, everything. I am not sure that I could tell that this beautifully stretched canvas she is holding has never seen my paintbrush… it is eerie and I understand why the process is so expensive.
She is beaming. Jumping up and down a little bit. She talks to me about this limited edition of one hundred. She tells me that she has number 1/100 and that the Center gets number 2/100. She tells me about sharing the other ninety eight with the world. My head spins.
Yesterday, I sold my first one. Just like that. To someone who loves to say YES and beamed too, when she saw it.
Life is amazing.
The whole cycle of creating and sharing and giving and lending and infusing and giving back and re-creating and sharing some more … so much richness; so much surprise and so much joy. Whew.
Recently, a beautiful woman who has been dancing wildly for weeks at the Center told me that until then, she had not been dancing at all. She told me that she had wanted to but had not let herself. She told me about an evening, a few weeks back, when she had climbed the fifty five steps up to the Center, not knowing if she was going to stay. And as she had peeked through the door, Laurie’s YES painting had spoken right to her. And she had walked in. And she had danced. And she is still dancing.
YES.
