Every Breath Colors Our Essence

I missed Color Class tonight. I wrote it in my planner, but then I fell asleep, so I didn’t go. What does that say about me? I don’t know. Or...I do. I needed the sleep.

~

An abstract painter who loves to blend teaches Color Class at the Institute of Contemporary Art, San Diego. It is an in-person class, a blessing, and I am grateful for it.

When I go to class, which I always have until tonight, I spend those hours amidst other inspired travelers, focused on gradation. We study the color wheel, color schemes, and values. We mix hues with pale tints and darkened shades. We practice blending one color to the next seamlessly, incorporating subtle ripples into our pieces, alongside bold shifts and energetic light.

It’s a fancy and a fight.

~

The Artist asks herself : Is this it? Is this right? Does right matter? Where is the light coming from? What does this colorful painting say about me?

At times, my modern-era self-absorption hovers over everything. It penetrates everything, like a tiny drop of magenta that turns a puddle of white, pink.

I think. A quiet mind makes a better painting. No. I think. A quiet mind makes a different painter.

Deep breath in…

Deep breath out...

Just be.

~

At home, I take the paints and papers out of my backpack. I focus, ready to transform and finish the work. Then my little one crawls out of bed. She joins me at the table and picks up a brush. She gets a rush. You can see it twinkle in her eyes. In a flash, she swipes pure Payne’s Gray all over those patient blue hues. Of course.

Deep breath in...

Deep breath out...

React.

The Mother asks herself: What color is my reaction? Where is the light coming from? What does my reaction say about me— as a Mother, an Artist, a Being? I don’t know. Or...I do. I am Me—a swirling burst of energy glowing with light and color.

~

I am Me, and We are We.

For every experience colors us. Every moment, every breath, every choice, every non-choice paints our essence. The colors keep coming—the blues, the blacks, the reds, the greens. They splash upon us like paint hitting Pollack’s canvas. Or they brush on, in more delicate sweeps, crafting a moody mood a la Rothko. Or, more precisely, those colors meld with your human canvas in a style never attempted before. Your style.

You are you.

~

We are we.

We live lives drenched in color. We exude our colors. We paint our existence. We are Artists, all of us.

We are works of art too. Our essence breathes in a constant state of transformation. The paint that creates our essence dries slowly. It’s almost always wet, pliable, more like oil than acrylic. Our layers and color schemes are limitless. At times we burn bright and shimmer, other times we darken, or blur into a muddy mix of the rainbow.

~

Me. I am an Artist, and I am a Healer too.

The Artist and the Healer are one. I learned and recited that mantra repeatedly in Healing with the Arts, an online class I took during this global pandemic. Every moment is an opportunity to heal, I learned.

Every breath is a chance to add more color, to blend in those subtle ripples alongside bold shifts and energetic light.

I guess that's why I'm so conflicted about not going to color class. Going, breathing there, was an opportunity to heal.

Yet, when I get real, I realize, that whether I go to class or skip it, those reactive tints, tones, and shades still wash into me. They change me. The colors make me more me. I can still heal, if I allow myself to heal.

I am healing, coloring, poeticizing.

~

Now it is morning, the day after I missed Color Class.

Out the windowpane, I see the lake. Sometimes it disappears into the white mist, swallowed up by daybreak fog. Other mornings, it burns clear blue, heated by the throbbing, orange, rising sun. Now, it is dark and murky. The lake ripples with waves, dancing with the wind and splashing birds. It metamorphosizes in color before my eyes.

The lake lives and breathes in color.

~

Who am I? I am Me.

You are You.

We are we.

We are essences painted with every breath, every poem. We radiate energy colored by every hue on the spectrum.

Deep breath in...

Deep breath out...

And so on.