Copying

I’m wondering about my desire to please. In college I copied other artists forms, Picasso’s Ironing Woman, a senior’s sculptural form. Now I sit at the kitchen table and paint things I can see, apples, bowls, jars of water. I wonder about authors I stalk, yesterday was Katherine Davis reading from her novel Duplex. In a few weeks I’ll meet Carlene Bauer, so am reading her novel in letters, Frances and Bernard. I wonder at the relationships depicted within their pages and the right ways of creating reality, likable people others can know, connect with on a page, while in person I feel like an outsider. I am a foreigner unto myself.

Am I an artist who is an original creator or one who observes other’s lives? In Roos Roast Coffee and in my own neighborhood I am constantly listening to the voices of others. The emails calling for help, and in this moment, a group of Jewish women saying things like, “My first marriage didn’t work out,” talking with a Rabbi about the decline of churches in New York. “Chabat Shalom, Hacks Samae,” they all say as they bow their heads like they are a choir. One lady wants to know what the Rabbi is going to wear tomorrow night, reminiscing on when he wore a big diaper. It’s an exclusive group, though none of them have met before and they begin to share their Hebrew names, which I can’t make replicate. One says, Jenny, had no Jewish name so we found the Polish name Genendal, then for Miriam, Mirala, which is Yiddish.  They all need to know the dress code for each event of the next two days

My words live in pauses between their chatter, as considering where I fit. Am I to be like the first martyr, Stephen who spoke to the Jews about how they were living under the old law and missing Christ’s death as a way to relationship with God? Do I get up and tell them all that their events are temporary or do I care about the traditions and language and ritual as details for understanding a new character. Is writing in silence behind them a way to respond to a call from above?

I still cling to the walls, to the periphery, looking for an escape route, panicking at what I should notice at this moment. What I do believe is that I need to embrace rejection. I need to be ok with disappointed squinting eyes, because then I will be able to take in Stephen’s last words while having large stones hurled at him, I want you to know and live in the freedom of Christ’s forgiving you. Stephen has his eyes on Jesus and says he sees The Son of Man in heaven standing next to God. I love to think that their might be moments where Jesus stands up from his seat in heaven wanting for me.