f o r t y - t w o
“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with
illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with
your demons will cause your angels to sing.”
—August Wilson
I’m doing outpatient therapy now.
We all gather around in a circle with counselors, sharing our struggles. The first few sessions were difficult. The therapist told me it would be tough even showing up. She’s right. You feel this kind of embarrassment. You walk in slowly, as if everyone around you suddenly knows you have a problem. And they know exactly what it is. Other kids look at you, smile, hide their faces, hug you, kiss you, laugh, cry.
The strangest thing? After a while you sort of lose that complex. You accept everyone because you know what? They accept you. Your problem doesn’t become a problem at all around others with similar obstacles. You start to rally around others. All the laughing and crying and hugging you understand. Then, before you know it, you realize the stronger ones help the newer admits, and the newer ones remind the older ones how far they’ve come and how they need to keep up the power of healing to survive.
We’re all survivors. We form a bond like some kind of sisters. I never would have imagined this dark part of my life would be the scar that gives me confidence to succeed, to feel normal in my abnormality.
I’m feeling stronger. The doctors say there’s no long-term damage to my organs, but I do have to take it easy. Moderate walks. Healthy eating choices. Hydration. Rest. Therapy. I take some medicines in light doses. I don’t want to be on medications for long, but they help me stop slipping into those dark places. They’re concerned that the malnutrition can have long-term effects on my mood that lead to severe depression.
I told the doctors I didn’t want to take them, but they mentioned that I could be weaned off pretty quickly once I began learning the tools to help myself overcome my impulses to purge or cut. I’m beginning to learn how to do this. How to retain my focus on health. How to redirect my own behaviors. How to breathe. How to talk to the friends I’ve made. How to realize no one is perfect. How to understand I should not be ashamed. That’s the one I really struggle with. Everyone around the treatment center is being so helpful, so loving. These tools they teach me help me to cope with shame, how to overcome it, how to overcome my own grief for losing parts of myself. It all might sound weird and strange, but when you go through something like this, it all becomes real and necessary, and a part of who you’ll forever be.
My portfolio has become my new goal. The thing to obsess about and work toward. When I’m not at the outpatient clinic or at doctor’s appointments, I’ve been finalizing drawings and paintings, working on the birds I showed Danny, which are inspired by LeFeber’s angels and the fact that his focus was on creating beautiful things instead of his own sickness up until he died. That place inside my heart, that jewel I needed to grow, has been forged in this fire I’ve been in over the past months. I am my creations.
And the new ones I create, the ones with artistry in mind, will be more symbolic of me than ever. That’s what LeFeber was doing. And that’s what I’m doing now. I’ll protect the gemstone in me. I’ll build walls around it. I’ll never forget me.
Tomorrow, I’m sending off my application, which includes a cover letter, sample drawings, a photograph of one of my paintings and a recommendation letter that I was able to get from Ms. Day. If I’m accepted, I’m supposed to hear back pretty quickly so I can finish the other paintings for the gallery show.
In my letter I wrote:
Dear Board of Directors,
I am a junior at Eastlake Prep High School. This has been a difficult year for me personally, but being a part of your gallery show is part of my dream for the future me. Let me tell you about the ‘me’ now.
A friend said, “Being an artist is just about the noblest thing anyone can do.” It’s who I am, who I plan to always be. Another friend recently told me, at his show, “You were experiencing the art with the greatest amount of passion.” I told him I’d been waiting all my life to see his work in person. His show was about fallen angels. Sick angels. He said to me, “Every angel you see is fallen. They’re sick. Infected with their own lives. Broken, falling. Our divinity is hidden within us. We must nurture that divine nature. We all must find our way to peace and health.”
He told me a story after I asked him about what inspired him. He told me, “So many things I can pull from the air just floating there. You inspire me. The answer you seek however goes much deeper. I am often secretly inspired by those early days when I borrowed money to rent a studio in New York. It was a chaotic time. I was full of dreams! I drew something from myself in those days that often seems lost now. You see, down inside of you is a purity. A gemstone of inspiration. It comes from within, forged from this unexplainable burning desire. You must keep it pure. You do understand this. Purity is everything. Protect it. Mine is housed, guarded within memories. When you do this you can gaze into the world. What do you see? You see poverty. You see war. You see hate. You see all these terrible things, and they burn in you because you want to help the world. You want your work to speak to the world. You want to save the world. Yet, after all, you are only a painter. You don’t create war machines. You don’t create political agenda. You create the aesthetics of the world that covers all, another form of meninges, a membrane of life and beauty pulsating over the sad brain of the world. Yes. That is our work. Our art. And while the pain of the world is inspiring, it all must eventually pass through the original purity within you in the first place. That gemstone. The one you must keep pure. The one that harbors the seeds of all your inspiration.”
His name is Geoff LeFeber.
You see, I’ve discovered that gemstone. I know where it is. It’s part of me now. I’m guarding it. And I’m ready. You have my drawings. You have this letter and the letter from Ms. Day, my art teacher. I’m ready to soar.
Sincerely yours,
Olivia Blakely