A Roar for Rainbows

Every little thing that you have said and done

Feels like it’s deep within me

Doesn’t really matter if you’re on the run

It seems like we’re meant to be

-Karl Martin Sandberg, “As Long as You Love Me”

A Roar for Rainbows

It is the summer of 2013. My mother has just handed me an old photo. It’s a candid shot of a little kid covered in paint. I look up at my mom, who is standing in the middle of my creative studio space.

She sticks out like a sore thumb (Gardner, from the Mason Novels) because everything in the room is saturated in green, the organizers, the floor mats, and the walls.

The saying: "Sticks out like a sore thumb comes from these books. There are at least 50 books in the series. I just got the first this week. I have long tome to enjoy! 

Are you a Perry Mason fan? If you are, recommend the top three and I will make sure to give them a read.

All but the two of us are covered in a soft seafoam of lemon-yellow green and recently rubbed off layers of dusty disuse. We both smile and wipe away the tears of a former photograph and this simultaneous good memory.

I see the solvent is slipping rainbows down my latest painted canvas. It’s been years since I have been able to do this. Medical complications have robbed me of my ability to move freely. This virus has inspired my newest vendetta: take back my creative powers from the clutches of the memory balance thief living in my brain. For me, making my imaginings into visual art is the bisection of my artistic obsession.. This time, I am winning. It feels so good, so rational to live in aesthetic ponds of pigments.

I say to my mom, “I feel almost myself today.”

The vertigo beast is hiding in the dark lair of my brain’s nervous system. It is unable to reach me today because we finally found medications that keep the evil barbarian temporally chained to the wall of memory. I have pulled out paints, ground out hues on to my pallet, and slithered shapes on to the canvas resting upon my easel. Sometime between grinding the pigments and touching the canvas with the scent of poppy oil, I started to find my soul once again.

In this moment my mom has caught me painting for the first time in years. Her face is full of joy because she knows her daughter has started to fight back and w