The Portrait

 I wonder if we all recognize that within us is an artist.  We are, in our own way, Van Gogh with his self portrait. Beneath our flesh is Monet with the beauty of his gardens and Picasso with his love of the abstract; the list is endless. With every tale told our verbal hand takes hold of a paint brush, strokes through the wide ranging palette of colorful adjectives and creates a portrait of those we have known. 

There is no denying the portrait we paint when love enters; the colors are vivid, bursting onto the scene, washing life with a vibrant hue.  There are wild, wide, blissful strokes of color as we tell our friends of the man or woman who has brought such happiness to our life.  I remember in the early hours of love describing him with soft, beautiful hues to my friends.  The words flowed from me as never before with peace and tranquility, tinged with electricity; the portrait was soothing, warm and secure, with an undercurrent of fire. I painted him as the most beautiful I’d seen, a soft fawn color, so perfect the image stood away from the canvas.

 If I were to have commissioned the portrait of my young love to any artist it would be Monet, my favorite, and would hang beside his collection at The Musee D’Orsay in Paris.  The work would be impressionist, soft and beautiful, comprised of roses and peonies, arching branches filled with hydrangea; strong yet delicately draping to the ground in search of secure footing. My choice of colors would be rose, blush and the subtlest of browns.  There would be the palest of blues, and the fire of ginger, like a sky at dusk, calm and tranquil, as the day ends and the evening, with its passion, begins.

To portray a scene in the first stages of a relationship is the most beautiful; there is an ethereal quality to our artwork.  It is memorable, a masterpiece. The excitement, with each stroke, leaves those attentive with an indelible image. The beauty is drenched in a torrid movement of the mind.  Over time, as the colors fade, we paint a new portrait, a new period in our lives, at times with a more aggressive palette, possibly bolder primary tones that mimic raging emotions, or in some cases a neutral, non-descript color, perhaps beige, that imitate the stagnancy the relationship has fallen into; either way the portrait changes. When the end of the relationship is on the horizon, it can be assured the colors become darker, more ominous, like the raging sea during a storm swelling with a vicious undertow that carries a body far from the security of the mainland, drowning it in the depth of its fury.

 The image is, once again, indelible. It is the final image that is best remembered.  When we leave a partner or friend, more often than not, we paint the final portrait.  The once beautiful colors become haggard. The still life quality is now askew with a more wild technique, lashing out at the injustice, lacking the continuity once known.

It is in the final stages we must take care in the painting of our portrait.  As it hangs side by side amongst our other artwork in the gallery of the mind, the last portrait is that which we remember most.  The image can be abrasive to our soul and the souls of those around us.  We must take care, for if we decide to walk down the long corridor which encompasses our gallery of portraits for a second time, those dearest to us shall always remember the haggard image, the painful expression, the portrait we painted of our once loved one with hateful colors for the entire world to see.

 I attempt to keep the first image as my last. Though muted, the colors remain familiar, the feeling still evident; my canvas awash with sincerity.  My portraits are painted with respect for my subject.   If hurt is in my heart I paint it with fiery colors then wash over them to subdue and accept the pain. I express my emotions and release my frustrations with each stroke of the brush; it is a learning process.   If ever I should return to a relationship, whether an old love or an old friend, I want only the essence of my original portrait to be visible in the gallery of my memory.