A Reason For Living…Again

Carter came to visit, and suddenly I feel like living and writing again.

She brought a bag of ideas: a little plastic truck with wheels to roll in paint, some leaves to lay on the gelli plate and print, a rough stone to make texture with, and more….

She arrived and disappeared into my studio.”I have work to do,” she said. I found her there a half hour later, having almost completed a little masterpiece. “I found these sparkly sticky jewels and stuck them on, and then I surrounded them with colors; I repeated the colors.”

Carter brought me a gift, too. Her signature pieces: tiny little scrolls tied with string…so small that only a five-year-old could untie them. There was a collection of them bungeed onto a piece of flat art that said, “I love you, Nana”. It was so dear a collection that I cried out against her untying the strings, but it was her art so she opened those tiny scrolls to unveil delicate tiny art, made just for me.

We sat down across from each other, as we have since she could hold a crayon, and I heard her telling herself how to be brave on the paper. If it’s ugly, don’t give up; turn the paper, glue something on it, make it work. Scribble all over it, put water on it, make it run, or blot it.

I’m going to home school her this year, even though she’s a bit worried that I don’t know how to be a teacher. I told her that we will, for the most part, have a regimen, a time for school in the morning, and that it will take some discipline. She said, “Oh Nana! Don’t worry. I love to learn! I will never say no to learning!”

And so, I have been given a reason for living again. Carter’s sticky rhinestone art surrounded by a patchwork of pure primary colors (repeated) has injected some adrenaline into my tired old veins. There is still joyful work awaiting.