Christina the Astonishing

It's a beautiful day.  The sun enlivens the world with light and shadow.  Dogwoods are in full bloom.  North Carolina in the Spring is just fabulous.

I listen to people complain a lot.  Nothing angers me more than people complaining.  Because it seems to me that the people who really have something to complain about just don't do it.  All the others are just pissed that the world doesn't revolve according to their specifications.  When I look at a day as beautiful as today, I think, what's there to complain about?

That being said, I have a complaint-ridden brain at the moment.  And due to my own aversion to complaining, I have a hard time allowing my complaints to manifest.  I'll tell you a story instead.

I have a painting that I made roughly 22 years ago.  It is of a lizard.  A Parson's chameleon to be exact.  They live only in Madagascar.  They are highly unique and I love them.  So I painted this picture of one as an experiment to see how realistic an effect I could achieve with watercolors.  Up until this point, I had not utilized watercolors in any capacity other than creating washes of color.

The end result of my experiment was surprising.  I managed to - without any formal training - create an accurate representation of a Parson's chameleon via a photo I found in a National Geographic magazine.  I felt like I had accomplished something significant.

I had this painting matted and framed.  Over the course of many years and many different living situations, I entrusted this chameleon, whom my daughter named Christina the Astonishing, to the care of my sister.  For years, the chameleon was proudly displayed in a central location of my sister's house.

Recently, I took Christina the Astonishing home with me because I felt like she would fit right in with my new surroundings.  I hung her in a central location of my new digs.  But she was replaced by a larger painting done by my housemate's mother.

Christina sat on the floor for a couple of weeks until I decided to hang her in a new spot.  It was still a central location though less visible.  After a couple of days hanging there, Christina fell, shattering the glass which contained her.

I've been having a bit of a dry spell, artistically.  For whatever reason, I've ceased doing any visual art.  My thoughts keep drifting to an upcoming community art show in a local coffee shop and the conceptual pieces I want to produce for that.  I was pondering this project, which I haven't started, right when Christina fell.  The noise she made sounded catastrophic, as if some ancient wail  originating in Madagascar had been released.

What was this wail?  How was I to interpret it?  What is Christina's unspoken desire?  How may I ease her longing?  What, then, must I do?

Christina sits on the floor again.  Her encasement is broken but she continues to live behind it.

I live with a person who likes to crack jokes.  He likes to take those sorts of little jabs that I often interpret as serious/hurtful comments.  But he's joking.  He's a lighthearted kind of guy.  I, on the other hand, have lived with so many verbally abusive people over the years that I react adversely to such jabs.

Girls: remember the little boys who used to pick on you because they liked you?  I hated those guys.  I thought they were bullies.  Maybe this feeling originated with my father's sarcastic remarks to us as children: "Why don't y'all go play in the street!"  I knew he wasn't serious.  But these comments were hurtful, nonetheless.

Ex-husband guy, similarly, used to "pick on" me.  He also used to beat me.  Were his punches jokes too?

After reacting adversely to one of my housemates cracks, I sped away to an appointment with my therapist.  Good day for a therapy appointment, I thought as I was driving to it.  I arrived four minutes late and my therapist's office was dark and locked.  I waited on a bench outside for ten minutes before the anger welled up inside of me.  This is a pattern with my therapist.  And my last "appointment" with her hadn't been properly entered into her computer.  So she double booked.  Meaning I didn't actually have an appointment with her.  Which I didn't find out until I drove all the way to her office and waited for twenty minutes before she showed up.

Is it any wonder I'm fucked up?

Christina sits on the floor in her broken cage.  Maybe I'll set her free.  Maybe I'll send her to Madagascar.

Maybe I'll go too.