It is acute.
A pang I don’t believe anyone else could ever understand.
It is an agonizing sensation which leaves my stomach twisted up in vicious knots.
Inhaling deeply and lifting the teacup to my lips, I take another sip and think about the woman I’d only seen a moment ago and her wicker basket of oranges. Something about her skin…smooth and pale and creamy like whipped butter…Those blonde tendrils which tumbled around her shoulders... The grace with which she moved along the street with smiling and offering greetings to practically everyone who she passed by… I love watching her—not entirely sure why. When the image of her flawless face fills my vision, I groan inwardly, almost cursing myself for the way my nostrils flare and my lungs fill with much more air than they need when I think about her face.
It’s just a face...
A human face no doubt.
I conclude that its bones are no different than they are in any other human face I’ve seen before. And then my mind drifts back to her skin…perfect, likely smooth beneath the fingertips to the touch, soft and unblemished.
Like a blank canvas.
Her silhouette—curvaceous lines upon lines upon lines.
Angles.
Crescents, more curves and S-shapes which are never ending.
A woman’s figure positioned ever so naturally. Arm draped here. A leg positioned there. Naked skin. Something to mar. An untouched foundation. Only raw humanness. Perhaps an ideal?
Could I mix the perfect blend of colors to capture the hue of her skin on the canvas? Could I arrange her limbs so that the sunlight dusts it flawlessly? What would I do with her hair?
All the questions race across the front of my mind but they travel so fast I’m unable to catch them, so I let them go. Breathing in so deep that all the air which is sucked into my body feels like it renews me, I close my eyes and imagine it all and it is utter perfection.
I can visualize it—reach out and almost touch it as if I have created it already.
Like it’s a living, breathing thing.
A smile touches my lips.
A spark ignites my spirit.
A drum begins to beat in what once felt like my rhythmless heart.
And then just as soon as I feel a little more alive than I did before, that insidious thing every artist must wrestle to the earth and subdue called doubt leaps on my left shoulder, hard and heavy and makes itself more comfortable there. It taps away on my creativity. Pokes and prods at it like the nuisance it is. Then beats it down to a pulp with the utmost conviction until there’s nothing left but my pulverized and reluctant imagination.
I have never painted a nude before let alone a woman…
Why would I paint a woman?
Why wouldn’t I paint a woman?
Woman.
The Holy Grail of femininity.
A sex to be revered and respect although we have no rights. We are expected to be pious and calm. We are required to obey our husbands and to stay at home and raise children. We are expected to be obedient.
A little breath slips from between my parted lips and lashes flutter before my eyes pop open.
I make no attempt to answer my own question, so I’m only left confused.
Tilting my head left then right, I think about the angles of her.
The tick of the clock on the wall across the room is loud in the silence.
I listen to it for a while, finding the rhythm of it soothing, remembering…
The swift stroke of a brush against canvas.
Enthusiasm.
The slide of the soles of my bare feet along the cool wooden floors whenever I had to shift position to get the right angle and before I put paint to canvas while standing in front of the easel.
Passion.
The natural scent of the canvas.
The suffocating aroma of turpentine.
The smell of it all…
Appreciation.
Shutting my eyes for a moment, my heart fills with something—maybe more blood—before it beats hard again, thumping against my ribcage. My cheeks warm. My breaths deepen. Something fills me, flitters around and tickles, a lot.
Excitement?
EXCITEMENT! Something I don’t think I’ve felt in years!
I am inspired.
She has inspired me…
Shifting on the stool, shoes touching the floor, I giggle to myself a little and then I find I’m laughing a bit more only to myself. At the sound of it all, Sadie’s ears perk up and then she pushes up from the floor just to watch the ridiculous spectacle of me. I cover my mouth with a hand and soon I’m writhing this way and that in my seat and in a fit of giggles.
BOOM.
The front door shuts.
I’m still laughing to myself but work quickly to gather my composure when rapid footsteps sound in the distance and I know someone is making their way up the flight of stairs. Clearing my throat and fighting back the snorts from all my laughter, I make it a point to right myself and sit composed again on the stool, just like I always am at this time in the morning…
every
single
day.
Sadie trots across the den and when she makes it to the doorway heels there, tongue dangling and tail wagging.
Tiny footsteps approach and then a head of short and sandy brown curls pops into view, shopping bags in hand. “Goedemorgen.” Evi sets everything down on the floor and steps further into the den.
Evi…
Grocery shopper, errand runner and house-helper along with being an absolute Godsend.
“Good morning, Evi, thank goodness you’re here.” I laugh a little. “Sadie’s been waiting.”
Evi smiles. “Good morning, Tess.”
I’ve known Evi for approximately eight months now. She bright and bubbly despite that I don’t think she comes from much. Her clothes are always clean, and her hair always smells like sea which she must spend a lot of time near when she isn’t here. She’s always happy despite that I usually see a certain sadness in her eyes whenever I look at her that is undeniable, and I’ve always been curious about why such sadness lives in her eyes despite the fact she never lets it affect her smile. But, I don’t know this young woman’s surname, or her age, or precisely where she comes from right here in the Netherlands. But the lilt in her voice and how she speaks with a soft G I can guess that she just might be from the south. It’s something I’ve wondered but I don’t talk about it. I had always felt it might be prying to ask for information that Evi has seemed so unwilling to give freely because maybe she would like to keep it to herself.
A smile touches my lips as I observe Sadie and Evi skylark.
Sadie barks and the sound of it bounces off the blank walls of this home. It lands deafening in my ears and forces me to cringe before it all stops.
Evi laughs out loud. “Okay, Sadie, please calm down.” She scrubs Sadie’s head with a hand and whispers a few words to the Labrador which I can’t hear.
I laugh a little to myself realizing that these two gals seem to be a pair although one is human and the other is not. Sadie just might need Evi more than she needs me…for obvious reasons.
A few months back Sadie had broken free from the leash Adriaan was holding when he had taken her out for a walk one afternoon. Evi was the woman who found our precious Labrador and brought her back to this address since it’s engraved on the silver tag attached to her collar.
Evi loves all animals, but most of all, just as I do, she loves Sadie to pieces.
Expelling a breath, I shift on the stool.