The power of a painting
“Gordon, if you want to, you can do this alone.”
“No I don’t want to do it alone I want to show you. If the devil got to show you the kingdoms of the world I want to show you the kingdoms of my world. Plus it is not every day I get to hang out with a celebrity. The closest I got to your level was once having lunch with the Catholic Primate of all Ireland, briefly meeting Archbishop Tutu and shaking hands with a former Archbishop of Canterbury. They certainly stood out more than you!”
“ Would you be surprised if I said I have never met those guys? You know my thoughts on the matter when you meet another human you are meeting another brother and sister.”
“I have noticed that at times you like to be alone so I was just thinking.”
“I only want to be alone when there is too much noise or another is exercising me too much. You are ok as I have known you a long time and given that most of our communication to date has been largely one way I am appreciating your company. Anyway, I have no idea how long this experience is going to last so I want to get to my Granny’s house.”
I had two grannies one called Jackson and one called Gates. On this visit, we are on our way to Granny Gates.
I never did like the design of the houses where she lived. From the front, they faced into the back of walls of the houses in front.
Like all homes they are places were joy and sorrow have been experienced. Standing in her hallway I see her polish, as she did weekly, her candelabra. I recall this scene when I was 4 and somehow I was aware that her daughter had been murdered. She wasn’t crying though her energy was fixed on cleaning the candelabra.
My child’s mind knew something was different though had yet to understand the adult world. It seemed to take mental records to be processed at a later time.
Her home was minimalist before it was a fashion. She kept her TV on one channel. It was one of those TV that you had to use a dial to tune it into the channels. I think she feared she would get stuck with a white screen.
I can see the painting on her hallway wall. I now know it to be Constable’s ‘The Hay Wain.’ The painting stood out in the austere surroundings. Again as a child, I was not aware how much an impression it had upon me.
After I had played every game I knew I often got bored as a child and it was then my eyes would glance on this painting and I would travel into the scene.
“Jesus I wanted to return here as maybe 3 years ago I wondered whether I could find the place and I did. I visited it and it was then I knew the impact the painting had upon me.”
“Indeed now that I come to think of it that painting and you have something in common. I knew of you, I had seen pictures of you though nothing like you are yet somehow I was drawn into your story just like the painting and somehow there I found hope and the power of the imagination to excite and stimulate regardless of the physical situation.”
Jesus said nothing he was listening though had sat himself down at my granny’s scullery table. He was spinning a knife, a game we amused ourselves with as children.
g.
