in the comment. The account is four months old and she has fifteen portraits and stories up.
I’m scrolling when I see a painting of myself. I know it’s me, but I’m not worried that anyone else would.
I don’t look like that anymore. Not even when I’m playing the piano. The last few months have erased the peace I used to find in my music. So while my career has taken off, I feel like I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole of frustration.
I’ve learned to live with the worry and longing, but there’s not a morning I don’t wake up wishing it away. I grimace when I think of the ways I’ve tried to find solace.
But, if she accepts our nomination, in just a few weeks, I’ll get to see her again. And I’m not sure if it will help or hurt, but I miss her so much, I’m not sure I care.
45
Beth
Between now and heartbreak
“Hey Princess, they’re playing your song,” Joe, my downstairs neighbor calls after me when I rush past his door towards the stairs leading to my rented studio.
“Sorry, Joe, I’m late for work,” I call over my shoulder. I usually stop and talk to him on my way in. I hear the slow shuffle of his gait behind me and stop.
It’s moments like this that make me wish I had access to the money now. I hate how Joe struggles to navigate the staircase down to the ground floor of our building. The elevator is broken, and our landlord hasn’t said when he’ll get it fixed. I called to see about hiring someone to look at it myself, I almost died of sticker shock.
“You’re working again? Don’t you take a night off?” he chides, a broad smile, with remarkably white, straight teeth takes the sting out of his words.
“Then I’d be bored,” I quip, digging my keys out of my purse.
“You wouldn’t be if you would sell one of those paintings, or let those little crumb snatchers you spend all your free time teaching actually paid you what your time was worth,” he repeats his daily refrain and even though I love my students, I can’t help but snicker at his “crumb snatchers”.
“I don’t want to sell those paintings and I don’t do it for the money.” I remind him and a flutter of excitement lightens my stomach. I just mailed one of the most amazing pieces I’ve ever done, and I’m still giddy about it.
After I mailed my first set of “mirrors” to the women who shared their stories with me, everything changed. They started posting their pictures, tagging me in them and my following started growing. One of my subjects was a woman whose face had been scarred in a brutal attack by her husband. I didn’t know she was a nationally known fiction writer. When she shared her story and her “mirror” with her nearly 1 million IG followers, the requests flooded in. I’m booked solid for the next year and have a waiting list for the one after.
“You should, you’d be rich,” he scolds me.
“Maybe one day,” I say noncommittally.
“My son might be coming to visit this weekend, I’d love to show him some of your stuff,” he says cheerfully and my heart pulls in sadness at the hope in his eyes.
“That would be amazing. But are you sure you want to spend part of your time with him looking at my little paintings?”
His dark eyes lose a bit of the sparkle, and he hums his disapproval.
“They’re not little, Beth. I wish I was famous so I could get some television cameras to come and show the world something good about humanity. You’re the best of it, my girl.”
I flush at the praise, it’s the kind he’s heaped on me since we met.
“So are you, Joe. And I can’t wait to meet your kid, I’ve got a good feeling about this trip,” I say and he smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
“He’s going to love you, you’ll see.”
"Well he better, since you and I are a package deal.”
“That’s right,” he grins.
He’s a sculptor who I met right outside this building. A cab was dropping him off and I rushed to help him when I saw him struggling to get out.
He had a cast from his ankle to the middle of his thigh and crutches. I helped him into the building and he explained he’d just had a knee replacement surgery. I started checking on him a couple times a day.