Mari Sola

‘Ok,’ she whispered as she sat down facing Mr Mallard, ‘what do you have to teach me today?’

This week’s classroom was sparsely furnished with high ceilings causing any movement to echo around the cavernous space; despite its size it was warm. The grey walls brought the space to life as they reflected natural light evenly around the room. The light flooded through the large windows, even on dark grey rain filled days like today. The seat however was uncomfortable, a deterrent she surmised to stop timewasters asking meaningless questions of the Master. She lay her small plump cushion on the bench, placed her hoodie and canvas backpack underneath the bench and tucked her feet in front of them, her faded black Converse crossed over each other with laces touching the ground. On her lap sat a well-thumbed note pad and in her right hand a pen ready to scribble down the notes from today’s lesson. Usually, her notes consisted of a torrential waterfall of words, falling over each other. It all made sense to her, providing she could see the colours.

She had been to see Mr Mallard every day of the week so far, each time a new lesson. Merely sharing the same space as her teacher gave her the confidence to try to access a greater understanding; he gave her a freedom to explore. He had a way of teaching she understood; it was almost as if he had been sent here specifically to commune with her. Others shunned him, arguing his teachings were simplistic and for children. She knew those who were disparaging towards her chosen teacher could only comprehend one layer of understanding. Learning, for her, was an all-encompassing activity, she saw colours, shapes, and words together as one. They would all coalesce together forming connections in her neural pathways allowing her brain and intuition to explore the true depths of the lesson. She swam through the colours as they swirled around her, keeping her buoyant and weightless with anticipation. In lectures she closed her eyes and permitted the words she heard to form colours and shapes, where none physically existed, to create the links for her brain. It was how she read the world. A previous teacher had told her about the scientific name for her gift, Sola was not interested.

At first the immersive way in which her brain worked scared Sola, she hadn’t known what was happening and the emotions were too strong for her to process. Often, she was left with a feeling of a heavy weight on her chest and gasping for air as if the practice was drowning her. Like any superpower the skill needed to be mastered before it would become an advantage. That’s how she viewed her swirling mass of colours, shapes, and words; her superpower and no-one was going to debase it with some long fancy word derived from a dead language. It was hers to name and wield as she saw fit, and it was alive.

She moved on the cushion to gain a more even padding underneath her and waited nervously for the answers to arrive. At the beginning of any lesson she was always fearful in case this would be the day her superpower failed and she would become an unfeeling two dimensional being gliding through life on top of the wave, never exploring the undercurrent again. A zombie is how she imagined it would feel like, except she would be aware of the treasures to be found in the undercurrent. The zombies glanced vacantly as they shuffled through life, which always made her wonder if they had ever even touched the vast ocean.

Shrugging her shoulders slightly she settled herself for the lesson. Her excitement and anticipation written all over her face as she pondered what Mr Mallard was going to impart to her today. The week had so far treated her to notions of warmth, creativity, spirituality, joy, beauty, comradeship, love and somehow she now knew what it felt like to be rich. Within seconds of her ponderings the colours and shapes began to swirl around her, as if she was part of a Van Gogh. Yellow, Orange, Red, Blue, Green and Brown all combined, separated, and settled into neat rows of misty shapes creating links of comprehension. Her hand became a blur as she scribbled without restriction. The marks made would only make sense to her when she connected them to the colours and shapes from which they had been birthed.

Her heart rate increased slightly and the hairs on her arms raised, though she was not cold. The understanding from the colours opened the gateway to the undercurrent of the true feelings. This phase was the most unpredictable, and whilst she was conscious there was a part of her not entirely within her body. She always felt as if she was watching the shell of her existence when this stage was at its most intense. This was the part that had initially scared her, control was not something to give away easily. That was, until the day she was too tired to fight it and allowed her superpower to take over. It was the first time she had ever felt complete, the first day she began to understand the intricate weave of life. That was when she had unwittingly inflated her own life jacket.

Once the colours, shapes, and words were under a modicum of control she permitted the emotions the freedom to enter her core. Today a deep sadness engulfed her, as a result her writing became more intense, her knuckles whitened around her pen. The colours remained predominantly bright. Yellows, oranges, and reds danced around her, colours which earlier in the week had been associated with joy and happiness, she even felt the warmth of the sun on her skin yet today sadness was encasing everything. The second wave hit her, harder than the first as if Mr Mallard had just sent a warning shot over her bows to test her strength, power, and agility. She was ready. An overwhelming sense of loss and grief hung in the air and swamped her. Through the disturbed mists of dancing colours, she saw the forms of painted skulls, tattoos of flowers on forearms, and bonneted women with top hatted men at their sides and a taste of Cumin was on her tongue. Not an unpleasant taste, just unexpected and she jolted with surprise. Water began to stream from her eyes, her throat tightened, and mucus flowed towards her upper lip, yet still she remained unwavering against the barrage. She was here to witness the undercurrent, not just admire the façade. Her face, although wet and sticky, was serene as she made sense of the emotions pouring into her. Mr Mallard continued the lesson and the deeper she swam the more she lapped up. There was now a two-way conversation occurring between them as if two kindred spirits capable of unlocking each other’s personal codes. Somewhere, in the distance, part of her ascertained that the sadness, grief and desolation was his final instruction.

The mists of entwining colours began to decelerate as her writing became more legible. Abruptly, the lesson ended. She wiped her eyes, blew her nose, gathered her belongings, and rose from the bench. Affording herself one final glance she proffered a delicate bow of thanks towards her Master and left the classroom gallery, noting zombies as she walked through the busier areas. Silently she pitied their existence, they would never know the depths, they would only ever see the top layer, certainly not the intricate layers that existed all around. She continued through the main gallery to the shop. Her last act in the gallery was to buy a small artwork postcard. She carefully placed the postcard inside her recently used notebook and left.

Forever encased in her notebook the postcard would remain the key to this week’s lessons. Though never again would she sit intimately with the delicate original watercolour of the various Marigolds against a blue sky. All that Mari Sola needed to access the emotions, knowledge and become at one with the undercurrent, was that small postcard labelled

‘Marigold: A Flower for All Occasions’ by Joseph David Mallard c.1835, Mexico City. Taken from ‘My Travels in Watercolour’