What Watercolors Taught Me About Life

I love art!  I love looking at it, thinking about it, talking about it, and creating it.  I can get lost in a painting, fully immersing myself in the art “seeing” everything else that the artist didn’t capture in her painting.  I’m also one of those art geeks that will stop in a park or on a sidewalk gazing at a sculpture, taking in all the details, philosophizing on what the artist is conveying to us mortals walking by on some errand in our mundane lives. 

Lately, I’ve been drawn to watercolor paintings.  Their controlled chaos whisper sweet nothings to me.  The way the colors blend so effortlessly as if they hadn’t a care in the world, brings me joy.  The way a story can be told so completely without much detail at all, fooling observers into believing that not much energy or thought was put into its creation.

It was just under two years ago that I made a decision that completely changed my life.

I was raised in a high control Christian religion.  In fact, I was the third generation of worshipers in this patriarchal religion.  All of my friends, associates, and almost all of my family members were also in this religion.

Those who left were shunned by friends and family alike, to the extent that if they ran into a family member (mother, father, brother, sister, adult offspring etc) at the grocery store a greeting wouldn’t even be offered.  It was as if that person was dead.

But I didn’t want to leave because I didn’t want to disappoint or hurt God and my family so I grew up to raise my own family in the same religion.

In high control groups rules are very important and there is constant reinforcement that you cannot use your own thinking and reasoning ability—especially as a woman—but must always look to God and the men who run the organization for direction in even the smallest decisions.

Spending a lifetime in a high control group like that strips away everything from you.  Independence, self-worth, confidence, and identity are all scrubbed from your skin in an acid wash of incessant reminders to stay righteous and always look to God (ie, the men running the organization) for everything.  Whatever personality you would have had developed as you grew was scoured off with the gentleness of a sand-blaster in a bath of guilt, shame, and condemnation.  It’s not surprising that I developed depression and anxiety early in life.  I spent most of my life being suicidal praying to God to end my life because I would never be worthy. 

Being strong, independent, or creative, especially as a female, was not tolerated in any form.  However, being depressed and in a constant state of panic was accepted and even expected since one was taught from infancy that Satan was always lurking, waiting to drink your blood and only those truly loyal would be protected.

So that was my space—my identity—and that’s where I stayed until almost two years ago when I made the decision to either kill myself once and for all or get the hell out of this religion.

Obviously, I made the latter choice and escaped with my life.  Many others have not.

After deep soul searching and over a year of trauma therapy I’m finally reaching the point where I can let out a huge sigh of relief and take a look at what’s left around me.  The spiritual apocalypse has now passed by and the destruction of the emotional simoom has settled.  But instead of a nuclear winter and a landscape, scorched and scared, I see vivid color and beauty.  I see happiness.  I see love.  I see hope.

Perhaps it’s the happy abandon in watercolors that draw my eyes.  I’m enchanted by the way all those reckless splatters and seemingly random strokes of color refuse to conform by not staying within rigid lines yet still create breathtaking masterpieces anyway.   The soft, almost transparent pigments don’t need boldness to create a world.  They don’t need to guilt, manipulate, condemn, or command to give them legitimacy and order. 

The unrestrained casualness of a watercolor painting is its magic.  Hints and whispers are all that’s needed.  It’s okay to not fit into rigid boxes created by men to control people.  You can still have boundless beauty, life, and purpose without the burdens of lines.  Don’t be afraid to spread out in splotches and speckles across the canvass of your life.  Be wild and flow freely with your color and imagination then stand back and look at the wonderful world you have created.