THE SAME

Ahh, Friday. I've been waiting for you! You know what that means...I may be a little late posting, but the newest painting + story is all ready for ya.

Remember when I was gushing about Hilda Randulv and her amazing photography? I finally finished the painting based off of this photo she took. (The progression is here and here, if you'd like to see). Hilda, thank you again for letting me illustrate such a beautiful photo!

This one is title The Same, and it makes me think of this song by Coeur de Pirate. So sad sounding...but the perfect mood for it, I think.

Enjoy!

Everything about her had changed. Her gangly arms and legs lengthened out, her once soft chocolate hair turned into a light and weightless blonde, she grew into her larger-than-life eyes, and she fell into a graceful stride wherever she walked—down the crumbed cobblestone alleys, along the rough, uneven road, among the soft blades of grass, and the prickly grains of sand on the shore.

Those around her always commented how she had blossomed into such a beauty—any boy would be lucky to have her attention, they said, nodding their heads. No matter, though, because the one that she loved was unaware of most things: his sense of humor, intelligence far beyond his years, and a strong heart, among other characteristics that she had grown to adore after all these years.

He hid from the world in his studio with a single paned window, sometimes staring out the glass and getting lost in his thoughts, sometimes sorting those thoughts on the thin paper in his worn leather journal covered in light scratches, with hundreds of dog-eared pages. There he sat, in the creaky wooden chair, scribbling his words well into the dark early morning under the light of the tired work lamp.

When they were children, he and she would play imaginary games on the shore behind their houses sitting side by side, and he would help her form the flower crowns she would proudly wear atop her waves of chocolate hair.

She wished he had not become lost in his thoughts, drowned in his ambivalence of the world around him. As much as she tried, she could not sort in her mind how he had grown into this state of mind, afraid to present his strengths to others.

And as much as she ached for things to be as they once were, she knew that only change would help him flourish back into the man he was meant to be; one that recognized his own humor, intelligence, and heart, untainted by a world filled with rejection and disappointment.

All she could do now, she knew, was offer him the time to become the same again.