INSPIRATION

The Fulfilling Days of Silence

Critical healing when words aren’t necessary

“I don’t paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality.” ― Frida Kahlo

I’m a writer who writes when I feel a strong urge for it, like nature’s call. It doesn’t happen all the time. It’s not something I can program into a daily To-Do list. It happens when it happens. Days, even weeks, can go by in vain.

When I’m asked, “Are you a writer?” my short answer is “No, I am not. I just dabble with words now and then when there is something worthy of expressing.” I’ve been reprimanded for that response. “You’re underselling yourself,” editors and publishers tell me. “Is that wrong?” I retorted. “Not everything you do requires recognition.” My latter remark frustrates them. It’s not interesting to their ears when I tell them, “Some things you do are for the sake of equilibrium, for mindset growth.”

Though I worked in publishing and have published since 2000, all that I’ve achieved feels like yesterday. For me, writing remains a nascent experience. A constant evolution, a discovery of who I am with every new entry I pen, including this one. And that, I tell writers and editors willing to listen, is the reason I write — to better understand myself and my foibles as I mature through experiences.

I sound like cheese. Perhaps that’s a good way of looking at oneself as a writer. The ingredients are basic, but the changemaking lies in the fermentation process: the handling, temperature, hygiene, and time span of its storage and sanctity.

I wonder about those who describe writing like a hike up Everest. When people describe mental fatigue, the struggle to put words onto paper, the restless sleep, the crippling anxiety chasing recognition, the need to be discovered, I get thrown overboard. To that effect, I ask, does that make writing a positive or negative endeavor? That’s the part I get confused about.

To a certain extend, I do get it. For me, to profess one is a writer brings this unnecessary burden of having to hold a conversation with others about what you write and why. It’s becomes process-centric. It’s the outcome that matters — how my writing makes readers feel and better reflect on themselves. Tell me how far and how deep my words have affected you.

Other than on Medium, I find it disillusioning to discuss the writing one does or have done. It’s like an illusionist who kills magic when his tricks are revealed. My reluctance is driven by the fact that there are other powerful ways I express myself sans letters, narratives that are expressions without words.

You may have an affinity for writing, but life has a way of throwing surprises at you when it comes to matters of creativity.

Growing up, I used to think writing is my main mode of expression, until my life took a turn.

A decade ago, I battled post-divorce depression. I slumped to an all-time low that I couldn’t talk about what conjured inside me. It left me feeling helpless, hopeless and emotionally crippled. I retreated to my room and requested to be left alone. I was strapped to a state of lethargy for a year and a half.

But when words were unspoken, something remarkable occurred. I started to paint.

I never took art seriously up until then. To this day I can’t explain what turned on the switch inside me, I can only assume, out of survival instincts, my brain took matters into its own hands and reprogrammed itself.

One thing is for certain, my brain unlocked itself. By doing so it saved me from sorrowful drowning.

I had read about the human brain developing new neural pathways out of struggles. I had encountered neurological studies that describe how the brain has the capacity to develop the neural pathways it needs by new formation, by strengthening existing pathways, and by forming connections between two previously unconnected pathways. To do so, the brain requires us to allow ourselves to experience failure, and if we believe in limitless possibilities, we can shift from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset.

At that point I had nothing to lose. I had surrendered to melancholia. I just wanted to breathe again, to remove the existential boulder that pinned me to the ground. Little did I know I was about to discover my brain changing from succumbing to a psychological implosion to succeeding from it.

“There is something beautiful about a blank canvas, the nothingness of the beginning that is so simple and breathtakingly pure. It’s the paint that changes its meaning and the hand that creates the story. Every piece begins the same, but in the end they are all uniquely different.” ― Piper Payne

As my mouth refused to speak, I felt a huge sense of release when my hands and brushes stroked along a canvas. I’m no artist. I have no formal background in art of any kind. But for inexplicable reasons, I was drawn to blank pieces of paper and a pen. At that point I couldn’t write. To write we need words. How could I if the words weren’t forming in my head?

I started by drawing random lines. Lines. Lines across a sketch book page. I recall running my fingers along sheets of paper to feel texture at a stationary shop. I noted the thickness, the smooth and rough surface of the pulp.

I discovered newfound joy wandering in art shops just looking at the arrangement of things. The assortment, sectioning, and colors soothed me. It was therapeutic. When in an art shop I felt a sense of healing taking place inside me. I hardly a clue what to purchase. It didn’t matter at the time. It felt like a sanctuary looking at the color pencils, pastels and blank canvases. The blank canvases had a magnetic pull.

Perhaps that’s how I wanted to feel, like a blank canvas. I was hurt, angry, and mystified. I was heartbroken. There was turmoil screaming inside me I bottled up from the real world. I wanted to silence the enormity of what I felt, as it was all too new. Up to that point, I had never experienced such an emotional bombardment. It was confusing. I felt shipwrecked on no man's land. I had no one to turn to that could read into my agony and tell me how to unbreak my heart.

I was counseled to begin again. That’s easier said than done. How do you begin again at 37 when you had worked so hard to build your life to perfection since you were 19? All the sacrifices, the commitment, the overtime, the investment, and calculated measures took to ensure I did all that’s been said to assure my happiness ever after? I thought I could outdo everyone. Perhaps that was the mistake I made all along. I sought perfection.

“If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” ― Vincent Willem van Gogh

A blank canvas felt like a beautiful place to position myself. Because I felt everything, I wanted to be nothing.

One day I finally bought a canvas and brought it home. A 50” x 50”. I sat and stared at it. I had no idea what to do with it. It felt personal. That was how I felt about myself at the time — what do I do with you Natasha? You are nothing. You are a failure. You thought you were smart, but you fooled yourself.

I allowed those words to taunt me, day and night, while I stared at the blank canvas. I was doing what I was advised to do — to feel through my pain, confront the miens of my demons. I had read about feelings through prose and poetry, now I was mauled by each and every one of it. We know tears taste salty. No one tells you how emptiness tastes like vinegar, vulnerability tastes bitter, loneliness tastes like magnesium.

I allowed visions of my past to flood. Happy days, hard days, loving days, crying days. The images tormented me. This too, shall pass, I was told. This shall pass, I reminded myself.

I looked at my bed. I felt half of a whole. Diminished. I tried to erase the memories of being looked at from that bed, being adored, being affectionate. The conversations, the movies, the endless memories. A thousand papercuts. The human touch. A thousand papercuts, my heart cried, begging my head to stop overthinking. This shall pass. This shall pass, I repeated to myself.

Without a sketch in my head, I finally gathered the courage to pick up a tube of pigment and squeezed it directly onto the canvas. I didn’t bother to mix any on a palette. I went straight for the canvas. From there, I smeared and brushed the consistency. Horizontal strokes, vertical strokes. I had no image in my head. I had no logical direction. I was guided by intuition.

There was no ideation, no anticipation. I allowed my wrist to guide the movements. I painted a layer. And then another. And another. I kept going, and going. As I brushed across the canvas, the noise in my head abated. The harsh words vaporized.

I was left with a heavenly sensation of silence. A silence that kept me motivated to continue brushing and mixing pigments. Minutes turned to hours. I was not scared or worried of making mistakes. If I didn’t like a hue, I just painted over it.

There were times I set the painting aside to dry thinking “this is it, this is done.” But the next day, I returned only to paint over it. What transpired was a rich layering of colors.

In replace of words, I found additional comfort in using various tools like sponges, rollers and spatulas to create textures. Rocks, foil, and fingers.

As colors then took shape, it felt like composing so-called sentences and phrases. Pangs of confusion were replaced with excitement. I got a kick from not knowing what all the strokes and textures would compose. There was beauty and liberation in unknowing. I just kept going, and going.

A painting would have up to seven layers before details emerged. Feeling adventurous again, I started to mix the medium. I went from pencil, watercolors and pastels to acrylic and oil. It got messier and I loved it.

I even experimented pouring black ink onto the canvas, tilting it at different angles to see how the ink flowed and patterned itself. I poured detergent and sprayed alcohol.

From the silence and release, I became bold, explorative and excited again. I regained strength. I found a new avenue to express myself without fear or feelings of anxiety.

Feelings of failure and lethargy were replaced with a stamina to continue working and producing. By doing so, I regained control of myself, of my direction. I could stop when I said so. I could go on for as long as I wanted to. A painting was my story. A painting had no right or wrong. My painting was channeling what felt like blockages inside me. There was no perfection in what I was doing, and that felt incredible.

Slowly, using my fingers to smear and smudge paint, I could feel myself clawing out of my self-imposed cellar. I could visualize myself being in the desert or at sea but it no longer frightened me. The vastness of things felt inspiring and empowering. No more suffocation. I could breathe freely again.

My paintings weren’t just abstract and metaphorical, they were symbolic. It was me taking stock of being a narrator once more. I was telling my stories again. The colors grew deeper and the textures became richer. Finally, I found what I thought I had lost — my expressions of love.

“What keeps my heart awake is colorful silence.” ― Claude Monet

Today, healed but progressively working on myself, painting is my language of sanctuary. Writing comes second.

Unlike writing, I can paint all day, every day, without uttering a word to anyone. It is a journey within oneself, a journey that continues to be necessary when I feel a need to decompress and take breaks from an unstable world. Painting gives me balance, an equilibrium. Abstract painting provided me answers to questions I had during unsettling times. It still does.

Today, I paint in a much happier climate. Today, I paint purely out of passion, not confusion. Today I paint when I feel my mouth needs a break from speech, and when my mind needs to check-out from the hotel of overthinking. We all need that now and then.

I didn’t anticipate art to be my alternative voice of expression, one that is more exacting than words when I write. Art became the language of my soul born out of a broken heart. If writing is a dictionary, painting is a thesaurus.

Art changed me and it definitely rewired my brain. My brain took over to save my entire being. That’s how incredible — forgiving, compassionate and understanding — the human brain is in the eyes of adversities. Who knew that’s how the heart, mind and soul reprograms itself when you’re drowning in the basement of darkness.

More importantly, I’ve learned to appreciate stillness and silence. I appreciate the existence of struggle. Failure is a benign variable in life. Struggles teach us to be stronger than we give ourselves credit for.

Fighting against the waves of agony in my head, painting offered me solace to cut through the noise and much-needed peace within. We have a limitless mind. One that can persevere, drive through mud, swim against currents, and distill through contamination. Our mind can rebuild and redesign itself to heal us.

There exists moments when words aren’t necessary, even for the most eloquent writer. There is the human touch, an embrace, a kiss that says it all, the look from a lover that heats you through the bitter cold. My art is of light and love. It is the true language of my heart.

I hope that you find yours.