'On Self'I work for most of the day on my self-portrait at age twelve.
I am working on this piece, but for two weeks now, it hasn't exactly been my primary focus. In fact, 'working' may not be the right word. More like staring at it, and occasionally applying a few marks. It is faint and soft and ghostly, but like a seashell washed up in the surf and buried in a thin layer of sand, its form is evident.
My desire is to imbue it with who I am as my twelve-year-old self.
As Neil Young says in 'Helpless',
"All my changes were there."
But it is also true that it will be imbued with the rest of me, as life's experiences have a way of showing up in the most unlikely places.
I work on one small area at a time, in a grid-like manner, like an archeologist exposing the layers. It is, I suppose, understandable, that working on a self-portrait would bring about a certain amount of introspection. And my mind wanders, exposing the layers of what makes a person who they are.
I am working on the portrait of my twelve-year-old self, and I catch sight of a photograph, (part of the inspiration I have brought with me), taped to the wall above my worktable. In glimpsing this photo, I am taken to events from my past which are linked, (in the funny way of life), first to something which happened six years prior to my twelve-year-old self, and then to six years beyond.
Six years prior. A photo, (this particular photo), taken at Hollow River Falls near the town of Dorset, Ontario. I am six, and stand above the jagged rocks, having conquered the worst of them. Taken by my father on a family picnic, at a place we happen upon on a trip through the rural countryside. I only know where this is, as the back of the photo has, written in my father's hand, 'Hollow River Falls, near Dorset'. A spot we chance upon.
But for me, seminal.
And then beyond. I am eighteen, and working at a summer camp in Haliburton. On this day, three of us are set free on a day off, beginning at 7 p.m. one day, until 7 p.m. the next.
We do what eighteen-year-olds do on a day off, and hike eight miles, (on the one winding road through virtual wilderness), to the nearest pub. On the way, we drop our gear where we plan to sleep, an open spot by a river about a mile from the pub.
It isn't all clear to me now, but I know that the evening involves people, music and beer.
Somehow, I become separated from my two friends. I wait and wait. The pub closes.
I wait.
When a fight breaks out in the parking lot, I decide, (although not in the best of shape to make decisions), to walk back to the spot where we left our gear.
I go it alone, and meet no one. All the world is black. I have a lighter which seems like a tiny speck of light in a vast wilderness, (which it is).
It is a long long lonely road.
Somehow I arrive, guided by the sound of water. I spend a long time trying to locate our gear, imagining the comfort of climbing into my sleeping bag , pulling it over my head, and obliterating everything.
But it is not to be.
I find nothing but trees, rocks and dewy grass. Nearby, I hear the river tumbling over rocks and, not wanting to trip and crack my skull, I curl up in the wet grass and sleep.
As the world imperceptibly lightens, my two friends appear. I am not amused, and as they sleep, I hike up the river's rocky edge on my own, and stand looking down at them, where they lie in the grass in the first slanting rays of daybreak.
I stand on the jagged rocks. It is not until long after this event that I realize that my father's portrait of my six-year-old self is taken in this very spot, at Hollow River Falls, near Dorset, this spot where I spend a night alone in the wilderness.
It's not really my way to imagine that my six-year-old self guided me to a safe haven, or that my eighteen-year-old self sensed a connection, but.
Well.
And as I draw, exposing the layers of what makes a person who they are, I wonder at these events, inexplicably linked.
And I draw.
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