Mom and Dad
Mom and Dad
“Who is this supposed to be?” Raquel asked, in a tone that suggested she spoke to a child. She was leaning in to nod at the eclectic array of colorfully warped, cartoonish drawings that plastered the wall behind my bed. Her focus was fixed on one in particular; a thin, shaky portrayal of a woman crying in a green dress. The words “no need to be sad” were scratched, inebriated, across the top of the torn backside of my mother’s office letterhead; my canvas.
“No one in particular. The green dress represents money. She’s crying because she needs more than material gain to make her happy, but society is telling her she has no reason to be sad because she’s rich.”
“Ah. That’s nice.”
Her air of condescension silenced me. We stood in my first apartment—my first home away from my family—and she lived down the hall from me. She treated me like a child (in many ways I still was), but I enjoyed her company far more than that of my direct next-door neighbor Marcy, who was very much like the woman in my drawing, except Marcy didn’t cry. Raquel’s authoritarian personality was comforting and structural, and I never minded it much except for when she talked about my art.
Art is subjective, and there is no “good” or “bad” art as long as it makes both the artist and the audience feel something they otherwise couldn’t. Some artists provide humanity to the masses through painstaking detail and bold colors; others choose to sit in dark rooms with drinks and ink pens and Crayola markers and erratically scrawl the problems they think are contributing to their sense of unfulfilled reality. All of those methods and an infinite more were valid; at least that’s what I believe, and believed then, and those ink pens and markers and letterhead were my only real friend and my only Savior and my only therapist. So, childlike as they may appear, who was Raquel to criticize works of such sanctity?
“Well, I wouldn’t say ‘nice’—it’s sad to see people live their lives for the approval of others.”
She nodded. “That’s true…”
We were interrupted by a garish and unmistakable knock. Raquel dove upon my bedroom door-handle, and I hardly flinched because whenever Joey came to see me I was pleased but she was giddy. I was grateful he paid her no regard, even if it wasn’t for my sake but because his arrogance let him believe he owed no person any regard. I didn’t resent her for her blatant envy, but for her ability to overlook his self-obsession just as I did. I had every right to his cruelty; who was she to let it happen and wish it was happening to her?
“Hi, Joey,” she oozed. “We were just talking about her—artwork.” The word sounded sour and uncomfortable even to utter.
“I see…she’s got some interesting stuff up here.” Joey’s focus landed upon the same drawing Raquel and I had discussed previously.
They both stood, parental figures; arms crossed, facing one another at an angle but fixated equally upon the drawings. Not a look of disappointment nor a look of satisfaction, just a look of authoritative observation. I watched them watch my artwork; as if they expected it to warp itself into a Titian piece in front of their very eyes.
“This is some interesting stuff you’ve got here,” Joey repeated, this time in my direction.
“Thanks.”
“Does it mean anything?”
I sighed. It was art—it meant something. It meant more than something; it was everything I struggled with and everything I hated transformed by my own hand into everything that inspired me to transcend the very struggle and the very hatred.
“Yes, it means something. It means I shouldn’t let something I hate dictate how I live my life.”
Joey responded with a blank stare—not blank in awe or confusion but in lack of interest. “I see. You’re my little philosopher.”
A part of me gushed while a part of me cringed whenever Joey referred to me as “his little” anything. Loneliness and emptiness and lack of motivation convinced me that being “his little” was a purpose I could easily fill. I didn’t have to pamper—even care for—myself because his commanding ways did it for me; living a hollow life was simple and achievable when all my choices and emotions were dictated for me. However, Joey alone was not a fulfilling purpose. He knew it as well as I did. But as long as I was “his little” something, there appeared no logical reason to give up a life with a purpose for a life without. I wanted a greater purpose and a purpose for myself only, more than I even realized. But I would not find it as long as I was Joey’s little anything.
“I’m not a philosopher, I’m just a brooding artist.” I chuckled at this condemning stereotype.
“Yeah…I guess so.”
Raquel laughed.
This time, their condescension stung but like never before. It stung in a passionate way; a way that made me want to shove them both aside and draw and draw until my pens ran out of ink. In my art they saw not the work of a juvenile, but a competitor and a threat to their authority. If, perhaps, I could find a use for loneliness besides compliance, whose life could they dictate? Certainly not mine. My art was not a childlike, intoxicated testimony to my loneliness. It was tangible proof of my ability to surpass my solitude; to make it something greater than submission. They were above me because I let them be. We all knew this.
The drawings on the wall were not ugly to Raquel and Joey in their scribbly appearance but in their ability to transcend the influence of everyone in the room. I knew this, and the drawings hung above me higher than any person ever could.
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