Tick, Tock, Tick, Stop

Those hideous colors, that I am sure were all the rage in the 60’s and 70’s, consumed the walls, floors, and windows of that kitchen. The bright orange signified the joy in that room. The dark brown reflected the cruelties of that room. Two colors that are diametrically opposed had been perfectly chosen. How could one room provide so much happiness and so much sorrow in just a few ticks of the clock? On the other side of that clock my Nanny had painted a picture on the wall; almost hidden from the world. It was a brightly colored lemon tree. Her energy, light and sparkle lay just beyond that clock. The clock that kept ticking by the hours, measuring the stolen times of laughter and joy. If only that clock could stand still in time, stopping at 4:49pm. If only we weren’t conditioned to crane our necks to constantly check the time. Maybe then the whole kitchen could be painted in bright lemon trees.

Looking at the picture of five generations of surviving women, posed in the kitchen, has me feeling orange and brown. We had all escaped that house as survivors, save for the two women flanking the photograph. Don’t misunderstand me, these two women were still survivors. They simply chose to survive in his cruel world. They deemed it necessary to stay in that kitchen, hoping that the clock would simply stop ticking. Until then we would sneak longing gazes beyond the clock; enjoying our life, laughter and love in the world of brightly colored lemon trees.





(Great-Great Grandma May sitting just in front of the lemon tree)
















“All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up.” -James Baldwin