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Going home

When I was just a little thing, I asked my mother, "Where was I before I was born?"

"Oh, you were a little monkey. We found you on the other side of the mountain and cut your tail off, and you stayed with us all this time."

"No," I said, "I mean before that, before I was even a little monkey. Because my memory can remember the forever, and I was wondering where that was."

I remembered a state of joy and peace, and then one day I found myself here. Sunday school taught about an eternity after death, an eternity that is unknowable because we have not been there. But eternity stretches both ways, surely. And the eternity of the past we do know, because we have been there. This was what I was asking about, because that is where I shall return for the eternal future.

My mother did not know the answer then, but, on Friday, that is where she went. When I had my last chat with her, I said that I wished I could go with. She could no longer talk, really, but she did give me the most beautiful smile.

Ode. William Wordsworth.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
        Hath had elsewhere its setting,
          And cometh from afar:
        Not in entire forgetfulness,
        And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
        From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
        Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
        He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
    Must travel, still is Nature's priest,
      And by the vision splendid
      Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.

The entire poem, "Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" can be found here.

My English roses.

Philipolis has some of the most scenic wind pumps in the world, but for a figure painter, it promised to be a quiet week. So you can imagine my surprise when turning back from the autobank I saw two of the most beautiful blonde girls I had ever seen.

After greeting them effusively and inviting them to model for me (well, I suppose, begging was more like it), they told me that they were in Philipolis to work with the tigers, and that they were returning to England the next day.

I complained to the cafe owner that his machine had swallowed my card. "You put it in your pocket," he sneered. I walked out of there with as much dignity as walking backwards allows, my eyes never leaving them.

At our house I told Billy and Gerrie that I was going to paint outside a bit. Philipolis is a small place with very little to do, and you never know, some young people might just decide to go for an afternoon walk, and just happen to walk past an artist doing an outdoor painting...

I never did see them again, but my painting went on rather nicely. Until that is, Billie walked past and asked how my pretty flowers were doing.

"This, " I said sadly, pointing at my painting, "Is all I have left of my beautiful English roses."

In the end, I suppose, not a bad outcome.

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Portraiture

When in Philipolis last week with Gerrie and Billy, I was made strongly aware that the idea of a portrait, and particularly a selfportrait is not one I am comfortable with.

I know that everything we paint, and write, and say, is a selfportrait. And I also know that this body is not who I am. We are the unseen observer who observes everything, including our sense of self.