t h i r t y - f i v e
“Our wounds are often the openings into the best and most beautiful part of us.”
—David Richo
Danny and I have plans to meet after school. It’s been a few weeks since Zach and I broke up and I’ve been focusing on my portfolio, which is due in about a month—right before school gets out for the year. I finally have work to share, and I want him to know that I really do miss him and feel guilty for not getting in touch.
He’s family. Royce and Jasmine’s breakup doesn’t really change that.
We meet in an open art space downtown where he comes to paint on the weekends. He’s got a grant to use this space, so he’s lucky not to have to pay for it. There are many artists here. Easels, drawing pads, couches. Live models dressed in skintight clothes are posing on two different stages.
“How’s everyone?” I ask, hugging Danny. I pull back and look at his face. He looks so much older than when we first met each other. It feels like forever ago.
“We’re all good,” he says. “Mom and Dad are struggling a little bit with Isko being gay. But, I’m telling you, everyone loves that kid. Even Lola.”
“He’ll be trouble in about a year,” I say. “He’s a wild one.”
“Seriously.” Danny rolls out a chair for me to sit at his worktable. “But what’s going on with you?”
I show him my portfolio. It’s filled with sketches and photographs of my paintings. He takes out some of my latest colored-pencil sketches of birds. I’ve been experimenting with mixing ink and watercolor to better capture the movement and texture of the wings. I want my drawings and paintings to look like they’re almost their own moving organisms made up of motion and light.
“Wow, Liv. Look at these. They’re really good.”
I breathe a sigh of relief.
I’m so happy he likes them. Danny is a terrible liar. If he hated my work, I would be able to tell. “I don’t think it’s my best,” I say. “I’m making myself work hard though. I’m trying to be as creative as I can. Trying to be unafraid. Trying to find myself in my art.”
“I think you’ve really figured out something with these,” Danny says.
He holds up various pieces and gawks at them all.
“You’re pretending to be excited,” I say.
I’m kind of embarrassed. Art teachers have always praised my creativity, but I’ve never quite gotten this reaction about my work. It must be getting better.
“Liv,” he says. “No I’m not. It’s like you don’t even have to go to college.”
“I don’t know about that... I’m just trying to come up with something I can share with the world.”
“And you will,” he says.
Danny’s own work is complex, brave, colorful, bold, sexy and alive. He shows me page after page of lovely art: drawings, watercolors, oil portraits, pen and inks, acrylics, even blends of textures on canvas. He was just working on charcoals of the models, and each one feels so vibrant. The strokes are confident and bold, and the bigger pieces feel like something that could hang in an art gallery or museum.
“Every line you create is inspiration for me,” I say. “The way you capture the models is beautiful.”
“I love being able to talk about this stuff with you,” Danilo says. “Seriously.”
I return his kindness with another hug. “I don’t mean to change the subject,” I say, “but has Jasmine told you anything about her and Royce?”
“I haven’t heard lately,” he says. “She seems to be constantly studying and hasn’t visited home much. She keeps things close to the chest—I think she doesn’t want to bother us with her problems. I hope they get back together.”
“Me too.” I start gathering my work back into my portfolio. “I wish they would just realize they’re the perfect couple so I can get my sister back. I miss her.”
“Believe me,” he says. “I’d like to have my sister back too. Who knows? I can never tell what she’s going through. She doesn’t confide in me.”
Jasmine and I are the only girls in our families. We formed a special bond when she and Royce started getting serious. Even though they’re away at college, she has been there for me whenever she could. Now everything’s weird.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I think I can understand. It’s hard sometimes to be able to say everything that’s on your mind. Even when you need to.”
I think about what’s hidden deep inside me. The things I can’t seem to express to anyone. The gemstone that LeFeber mentioned. I need to grow that place within myself, for his memory, for me, for my future. The more I think about what he told me, the more I realize I’m in a special place at a special time because of what I heard from him and saw at that show. I need to make use of this knowledge, this special bond we shared for such a short time. Frida used her pain. LeFeber used his sickness.
They embraced their suffering.
Did they ever figure out the balance between suffering and beauty?
They say Frida died from an overdose. It might have been deliberate. She had been taking painkillers and drinking. Yet her last painting was a still life of ripe, juicy watermelons with the engraving VIVA LA VIDA. Live the life.
Did she want to die? Or was she leaving a message for the rest of us? Did LeFeber need his sickness to help him create? Was his pain inseparable from his identity?
Sometimes I think I’ll never get better. Sometimes I don’t want to. Sometimes I want to destroy myself. Sometimes I want to die. Then there are moments when I feel that tiny, nearly imperceptible pulse beating through my chest.
Viva la vida. Viva la vida.
Live the life.
And I think maybe I still can.