He was given months to live … Having been a professional photographer practically my whole adult life,  I would have thought this would be how I coped- by documenting. By throwing myself into image making to freeze time…. But instead I suddenly found it really difficult to pick up my camera and in the midst of struggle and grief and exhaustion and sadness and while my foundation felt moments from crumbling, I looked down one day to see a paintbrush in my hand.

The end of my Dad’s life was a unique one, he ended up taking those last moments into his own hands through California’s End of Life Care Act and, well, that’s a story for another day - one I am still figuring out how to put into words that describe it accurately - I’ll get there- but art- the act of creativity and creation was with me the whole time. I wasn’t processing any of this in real time but looking back, my subconscious knew what I needed. I found myself turning to my old friend watercolor.  

I didn’t realize it then but by picking up my paint brush and watercolors each day at our kitchen table I was doing four things. (stick with me here)

1. It was the only way I could quiet the brewing sense of panic inside of me. Every day I could feel it building, in my stomach in my throat, behind my eyes … and I’d find myself headed to a chair at the dining table with a jar of water, paints and a sketchbook. It was my meditation, it was both a moment of control and letting go. it was how I turned down the noise and found my way back to my body, if only for a few minutes. 

2. I was removing any critical artistic voices that lived inside of me. By turning to art as an act of survival the pressure of creating something good was silenced. I come from a long line of gardening women and painting flowers was a no brainer- like I didn’t even consider it, I just started with a cosmo. I didn’t have to think, I just had to create. The view from our kitchen window told me what to do and that was that- flowers. It didn’t matter if I didn’t like the end product, it wasn’t about that, it was about the process. I didn’t choose to paint flowers, they chose me. 

3. It was a moment every day, among the fear and grief, where I was reminded that there is always beauty in this world if you know how to see it. On my worst days, my brain would trick me into thinking it was all for nothing- watching my Dad disappear threatened my entire world view and most days I gave into that but these moments with my art supplies brought me back to the self I knew was still there inside of me- it reminded me who I was.

4. And lastly, probably the most important one, I began to process. It was (and is still) a journey - perhaps of a lifetime but if you’re going through it (as we all are in some way shape or form) this is the part I truly want to share with you. As someone who has been in a life long relationship with anxiety and worry I have found that this practice of noticing the world around me, noting it and what its telling me and then expressing it through drawing, painting, writing or some combination of the three has helped me learn how to listen to my true self. It’s been both an act of survival and rebellion.

This practice of noticing, something that I know always lived inside of me but that grew in new ways out of - well the hardest period of my life -has become a gift- a daily meditation for me and a way of quieting the noise and rooting myself in the here and now. 

So I made something out of that… to share with you, if your way of seeing the world is like mine.

It’s called Proof of Life.