The Long Journey Home

God won't mind if I take a shortcut, will He? Art, after all, is at the very center of His creation. It doesn't matter whether you look at a leaf or a lion, patterns and colors are present in abundance. Even the seemingly cruel chaos surrounding the lion's half consumed meal bows at the altar of beauty as time wields its brush. A carcass becomes a catalyst for old and new life alike, and death cannot stop the dance.

I reach over and carefully select one of the sycamore fig tree leaves that have fallen onto the star-bleached antelope skull. Although the lion left the head of its prey pretty much intact, other creatures have taken care of that oversight. The leaf is still green, having fallen only because the tree was shocked by the amount of rain that fell recently. We were all shocked by that! However, everything for miles around is already bone-dry again. Grimacing, I chop the leaf up into smaller and smaller pieces, until it's nothing but green powder in my cupped hands. It feels like I am destroying something precious, but once mixed into a paste with a little oil, the leaf will again come to life on my waiting canvas.

As I drop the dismembered leaf into the oil and begin to mix it in, my mind wanders back to that New York gallery. That backstreet New York gallery where my long fought for future crumbled into so much dream dust. Oh, everyone who came to my exhibition was extremely polite. All three of them. But my parents and younger sister (my two older siblings were at the Jets game) can hardly afford to buy food to decorate their tables, let alone art to decorate their walls. And would I really expect my own family to pay me for my work?

Sighing, I watch tenderly as the oil takes on the hue of the sacrificial leaf. I don't know why I feel so bad about using the leaf in this way, but feel bad I do. My art has consumed so much and contributed so little. In fact, it hasn't contributed anything, to anyone, anywhere, ever. That is my assessment. It's time to change all that. At least, it's time to make one final attempt to change all that.

The late afternoon air is baking hot, still, and achingly heavy as I lay out the canvas onto the flattened earth. My simple act of removing it from its plastic packaging and unrolling it has already brought it to life. A few flies are immediately caught in its web, and the deep ochre hue of the soil quickly permeates from the underside of the canvas - the stark white of the material softened by its rich presence.

Vita mutatur, non tollitur

Latin is a beautiful language. Nearly dead, but like many nearly dead things, still beautiful. In a few candle-lit corners of the world, if one listens carefully in the right place at the right time, one can still hear it drifting with the incense out from the few Churches that stubbornly continue to celebrate Catholic Mass in this ancient tongue.

Written hastily in homemade green paint on the canvas stretched out at my feet, it looks to me like it has always been there. In a very real sense, it has indeed been there - and, in fact, is everywhere. Vita mutatur, non tollitur. Life is changed, not taken away. It is written into the deepest fabric of the Universe. Once life begins, it can never end. It must change, but it can never end.

With a sharp breath, I draw my dull painter's knife over the palms of my hands. Only just forcefully enough to break the surface without digging into flesh, but boy does it still sting. The cuts aren't clean, and the delicate skin tears easily. I am already stripped down to my underwear, and as the sun sets, I lie down on the canvas, pressing my hands down by my side into the rough surface beneath me.

This final artwork is going to be unique, that is for sure. Will it turn out great? I don't know. Will it make my family rich? I don't know. But it will be unique.

My eyes close, and I start to imagine the lion, nostrils twitching as it catches the scent of my blood. I wonder if it also catches scent of my failure? Will it be merciful and kill me quickly? I hope so, as I want the canvas to survive as intact as possible...

As my art exhibition ended without even the sniff of a sale, I had reached into my jacket and pulled out the only thing, apart from a large roll of canvas, that I had left. I had always wanted to see the lions in Africa, and in a burst of optimism had anticipated making a lot of money at my exhibition. I had spent all the money I wasn't going to make on a plane ticket. One way or another, at least one of my dreams will come true.

...I fall asleep under the African night sky.

It is dawn. I awake and look around. My hands must have stopped bleeding fairly quickly, and amazingly enough I feel rested and ready. God has answered my question - no shortcuts allowed. But some things have changed, and the scars on my hands will be enough to remind me that I must not measure my success by how many artworks I don't sell. Life continues, and I get up, gather my belongings, and start my long journey home. I haven't seen the lions, but I have seen where they live. I will paint their pictures - resting under the sycamore fig trees full of leaves that have given me fresh hope. Hope that life is always worth living.