I had hoped to finish my latest painting, today, but I’m finding it hard to settle. I heard yesterday, by the sea at St Andrews, that a beautiful, kind and compassionate friend of mine had passed away the day before.
We had met on an end of year retreat at the Kagyu Samye Ling centre in Eskdalemuir, a few years ago, and kept in touch since with occasional emails and messages to share moments of natural beauty, short chats, humour. A short acquaintance but a feeling of a deeper connection that has brought waves of emotion passing through me, a real feeling of loss.
So this sketch is the best I feel I can do, today, part of a spacious view not far from home, looking towards the upper parts of Falkirk in the distance.
Yesterday, I thought of her as I dropped into a flow of moments of clarity and calm, riding the glassy, rising face of a lovely wave at St Andrews. Today, I dedicated to her the experiences of autumnal beauty and birdsong in a walk through nearby woods; moments she would have appreciated sharing.
Making a sketch or two helps, while waves of grief pass through. I find it calming, to draw when emotions are turbulent, a physical and mental focus, it’s helped me regain equanimity before, in other situations.
I remembered an early conversation with my friend, over drawing and painting, which she aspired to do but felt very shy of doing and never shared results of, despite my attempts to encourage her creativity and to create a safe place to share it. The whole issue of people’s feelings of shame, incompetence and suppression of their own (and others’) creativity is a topic I feel deeply and strongly about, something I’ll return to in a future post.
Perhaps, after all, I will mix some colours, put some paint on canvas, step back a lot and see how it works out. I have a few hours of daylight left. Whatever is happening for you, I wish you well.