Images in time, do you still see
the girl who was lost or the woman flown free?
♦
A gathering lining of rich silver hue
clouds part once more to capture anew
one step at a time reluctant to stay
accept at last that time goes away.
♦
The moment has gone, now do you see
the girl who was lost or the woman flown free?
Yesterday, I set out to paint a small abstract as a loosening up exercise. The aim was to let go of anything representational but within minutes of starting I began to see a landscape emerge – trees, a shoreline, however vague and probably not what someone else would have seen at all. At this point I started to follow the direction I thought the painting was leading me, believing it was supposed to be this way. As a result, I forced the image to materialise into something vaguely resembling an alpine lake landscape and in so doing, deprived it of it’s true potential as an abstract painting.
We are surrounded by a world full of names, categories, labels, titles and tags. We love to name – it helps us to locate, formulate and store information. It helps us to feel in control of an increasingly complex environment. We have become so adept at this method of ordering, that we do it unconsciously, habitually and whilst it is of great assistance in a technical world it can have the opposite effect when used in situations which need to evolve naturally.
Naming of a person or situation leads to unrealistic expectations – whole scenarios can be played out in our minds which bear little resemblance to reality. We become disillusioned, angry and blame others for not fulfilling our dreams. We can never know early on in our work, friendship or relationship what kind of experience we will have together. If we name a romance too early we demand reciprocation, we force a reward – like fruit grown out of season it lacks longevity – we deny the relationship the chance to flourish and bear fruit as a natural progression.
By naming too soon we close off possibilities of something finding it’s own level, we reject it’s true potential, it’s own representation and deny ourselves of the gift it may have to offer. If we can be brave enough to let go of the confining boundaries of naming, then by so doing just maybe we will experiencing something beautiful.
Listen for the voices urging us heave
quieten the whispers of they who leave.
Those memories which sear recall with care
a wound opened, too sore to bear.
Afraid to forget, moments linger still
tempting and taunting as dreams beyond will.
Nothing to trust but the beckoning haul
of voices and future yet to call.
‘Chasing Reflections’ by Rebecca Pells Fine Art
Denial is a natural reaction to anything which may cause us discomfort or distress, to that which we did not seek – illness, loss of a job or relationship. It’s a form of rejection of participation in what is. Often viewed by others through a lens of negativity and accompanied by an underlying current of judgement, someone ‘in denial’ is perceived to have failed one of life’s many tests.
But denial has a role. We find ourselves catapulted into no man’s land, somewhere between the longed for safety of the familiar past and the resisted, feared future. Shell shocked, our senses heightened and with eyes clouded by confusion, we scramble to return to the safety from whence we came, only to feel the ground give way beneath us. The more we try to no avail the further we sink ever deeper into the quagmire and risk becoming stuck. But it is also a place of self-compassion where we can reside until we’re ready to face that which in this moment feels overwhelming. A place from which acceptance can gently and tenderly coax us toward the horizon we are not yet ready to meet.
Rigid with indecision and unable to move in either direction we continue to resist, knowing that we must find the courage to journey on and the strength to step out into our future, away from the place we mourn but in which we can no longer reside. Denial provides space, it enables us to take time to dip our toe back and forth, retreat and try once more until we feel ready. Eventually the dawn of acceptance – that we cannot go back – rises within, our attention released and now free to turn toward the new horizon.
By natural progression we tire of just staring at the future unable to fully participate from the incapacity of no man’s land and the first stirrings of curiosity and frustration spur us onward. The nurturing cradle of denial now feels restrictive as we strain to see what’s happening over the horizon. The moment we step across the threshold separating resistance from readiness, carrying with us the comfort of knowing it will always be there to offer a temporary haven, we take our first tentative steps into a future full of fresh possibilities.
Singapore 1966
Am I to be forever on the outside looking in? It has become a place – a feeling – so familiar, that I now fear the very thing I seek. I carry it with me and yet it doesn’t have form, this nebulous thing; I cannot grasp it, and yet I can feel it’s elusiveness. I have looked for it in my home, work, relationships and among my things. I have few items from my family home – they should evoke a warmth of feeling, a welcome symbol of my belonging somewhere but I find none, only a physical ache for something lost – no for something I’m yet to experience: an ongoing penance for daring to be here at all. It’s not my destiny, it is and always has been my reality, the outsider as one country became another and I learned to count the number of schools in different languages. Letters sent to best friends who’d formed new allegiances before the postmark had dried.
For a moment, I felt I belonged to something or someone, I wasn’t sure. It was a feeling unfamiliar despite my one score year and ten. It was only later with divorce papers in hand that I realised I hadn’t belonged at all, I’d wanted it so much that I believed for a while only to discover I’d found something different, an identity that didn’t even begin to fill the void. I’m trapped in this waiting game, on the outside while everyone else is within, strangely similar to my childhood punishment of being left out in the hallway while the rest of the family were in the sitting room with the door firmly closed.
And so I find myself on the outer edge of others’ comfort zones, kept in some kind of friendly exile as they perceive my differences. Or perhaps it is I who perceive them, me that does not know how to fit in. The roots of belonging are established in childhood and strengthen as we mature. If for some reason this fails to happen, I have come to accept, at least for me, that it will never do so. A sapling starved of essential nourishment, continuously uprooted and replanted in new territory every few years will struggle to thrive, it’s energy channelled into mere survival, unable to blossom or reach it’s full potential as a mature tree. It will never have the stability of it’s contemporaries, it’s roots exhausted by constant disturbance have little strength to weather the next storm.
Unlike the tree, I can choose my environment and find shelter from stormy weather and in the calm of my simple life I can thrive and flourish, untethered by my un-belonging, abiding by society’s rules but unbound by it’s conventions. There is a freedom to this existence from which I can emerge at my choosing. In this existence I can create my own place unrestrained by outside expectation and dictates. I’ve ceased to seek this thing called belonging – the need, the void is still there but I have learned to carry it not as a burden but like a warm coat. There is now a comfort in not belonging, a familiarity I would miss. I can finally embrace being on the outside looking in, not in judgement but with a welcome sense of reflective clarity that is borne by detachment as a gift. These are the desired nutrients for the flourishing of creativity and unfettered freedom to blossom.
Acrylic on Canvas 2014 Rebecca Pells
RHYMES&REASONS 