Window

Painting by the Cancer Diva

Essay by Vincent Blackwood

Right after her surgery, Cancer Diva told me all she could do was sit at the window at her parents farm and watch the damn squirrels. She got to know the squirrels well...too well. Squirrel TV. All squirrels, all the time. What made it more painful is that the autumn is CD's favorite time of year. She loves the smells, the colors, the crispness of it all. And she was missing it. The season was exploding beyond the glass, just out of reach.

This painting is so special to me because I see a portrait of depression too. Alone in a darkened room, feeling numb and cold as the world goes on in the distance.

Writer and painters seem to be apart from the world, and not by choice. Given a gift, and the curse, of sensitivity. It makes them simply not fit in. I know I feel like an outsider. Like the lonely figure in the painting. All my closest friends feel the same way. A league of the lonely. Yeah, our parties are grand.

That's why this painting means so much to me. And in the end all I can write about is my feelings. Those knotted, gnarled thoughts that are always shifting and never at rest. It is all that I have that I know is different and worth writing about. As I look at CD's painting I see her doing the same thing with colors and ambiguous shapes. They can mean so many things.

I understand that longing that she is painting. Longing to be a part -- but it is so hard to be understood.

Writers and painters record what they see. We watch life and wonder when we will have one too. If we can write or paint our feelings accurately enough maybe we will understand something that is impossible to paint or put into words. But we can't help it. Our heads keep gnawing at us at how very stupid it all is -- but something -- I can't explain -- pushes us on to keep trying.

Maybe it is that need for a connection with someone like us.Maybe if we get close, we'll get a glimpse of what is happening deep inside. Perhaps we will get a little peace for a moment. This is a very holy picture. This is a hymn. As I look at CD's work I begin to see her searching for a spiritual peace. It is a search for a peace that can only come from finding home. But as she looks out the window, it is not her home. It is dark inside and it is autumn. And she is missing it.