MAST

Oooh, Friday! I've been waiting for you!

Last night already felt like the weekend. The weather was taking turns with storms, heat, and super cold air, and I decided to stay bundled up in the house almost the entire day.

When my husband got back from work, we decided to get lazy and pick up Subway sandwiches for dinner, then we curled in bed with the dog and watched Cloud Atlas. I had wanted to see it for a pretty long time now, and besides being a little bit confused at the beginning of the movie, we really ended up liking it.

My husband will most likely want to quietly strangle me for revealing this, but we usually like to take out one night a week to eat Subway in bed while watching Downton Abbey...but since it's not out, we haven't been doing that as often.

Anyway. It's been AGES since I've done art with a story (with a soundtrack included), so I'm excited to show you a piece that I had been frustrating me to no end since snow was on the ground. I would take it out of the closet, rework it, stick my tongue out in disgust, and put it back on the shelf. Today, when I was about to add blush colors and rework it once again, I stepped back and realized that I think it's finally reached its stopping point. It's now happily placed on the wall in our living room, and I couldn't love it more.

This one's called Mast. Listen to Pi's Lullaby to get a better feel for it.

Sophie squinted at the muddy canvas that was sitting less than one foot away from her rounded face, eye-level. In frustrated motions, her toes kicked up the sand under her squeaky, unstable chair holding her tiny, feminine frame.

Sophie’s annoyance was reaching its height as she squeezed the last of the white tube of paint onto the canvas when an old, wrinkled brown hand touched her sunburned shoulder. Turning around, Sophie looked into the deep brown, hooded eyes of the old woman.

The woman motioned at the canvas, shuffling closer to the smooth splatters in her hunched and slow movements.

“Aah-pee,” the woman whispered with a toothless grin, smiling at Sophie.

“I’m sorry, I don’t underst—“

“Aaaah-pee,” the woman said again, taking Sophie’s hands, dragging them along the canvas and then placing them on Sophie’s chest. The old woman smiled, removing her old hands from Sophie’s, which remained over her heart.  Blowing a small kiss by touching her weathered lips with two fingers, the woman turned from Sophie and the painting and went on her way.

Months later, while staring at the dried paint on the canvas in the light of her living room, Sophie realized what the old woman meant. Happy. Sights and emotions like this truly did make her happy, and it was worth every try after try.