A visit from an old friend

Janie walked out of her back door and headed across the lawn to the barn. She pulled her heavy sweater tight against her against the cold November breeze. The night owl that nests in the scraggly old tree in the yard shrieked at Janie, making Janie jump. I know just how you feel Janie thought to herself. The morning sun was just starting to crest over the trees across the lake. While the sunshine should have warmed her face, the cold breeze banished it prior to it reaching her. Her head was still full of troublesome thoughts that had kept waking her up the night before. Thoughts of money, family, work, dread of not meeting up to others standards or desires. She had a thought that she wanted, and needed to go to her office last night.

She was thinking she should have worn a heavier coat as she mounted the steps to her office, studio, cave of solitude, she was never sure what to call it. It was more of a catch-all, she did a little bit of everything in there. Janie had forgotten the thought she had last night, but hoped it would come back to her. She unlocked the door and stepped inside the large room. The room took up half of the barn's second floor and was not insulated, which was fine for a few months out of the year. She flicked on the light switch. The four large overhead lights came on exposing a sparsely decorated room, with a few paintings, a bookshelf, and a big fluffy chair. A large paint-stained canvas covered the floor at the far end of the room with her painting easel centered on it. The broad wood plank floor had been sanded down years ago. She thought again about getting a large rug to cover part of the floor to make the room a little more cozy.

She looked across the room at the easel and knew that was part of the reason she was there. She started to take off her sweater but the chill in the room changed her mind and she shrugged it back on. She walked over to the large kerosene heater and flicked it on. With a whoomph the flame ignited in the center. She grabbed the handle and carried the heater to the middle of the room. She then walked over the array of empty white canvasses she had sitting along the wall. She looked at each of the canvasses trying to decide which size she would need. It would help if she knew what she wanted to paint but that idea hadn’t come to her yet. Thinking this would just be an exercise in spreading paint across an empty canvas she chose one the 8 x 10 canvases. She put the canvass on the easel then stepped over to the paint shelves that Steve had built for her four years ago.

She looked over the array of different types of paint and an even larger number of colors to use. She chose a brilliant blue, titanium white and ivory black without much thought. She placed the paint tubes on the edge of the easel, then grabbed a couple of brushes. Before sitting down, she walked back across the warming room and hung up her sweater. Returning to the easel she sat in the old wooden chair positioned in front of it.

Janie let her mind wander trying to decide on what to paint. A sunrise, sunset, flowers, a self-portrait, no not that. She briefly gave up and walked over and turned the stereo on, then put in a group of Bob Dylan CDs. She let the strumming guitar, and pained singing fill her head as she spun around in the middle of the floor trying to shed the melancholy fog that had encased her the last few days. The impromptu dance failed to decimate the fog, she made her way back to her chair in front of the blank canvas. As Bob began singing about the story of the Hurricane, Janie looked away from the blank canvas toward the middle of the room. Next to the kerosene heater she saw a small ball of fur rolling around the floor biting on an old slipper. The small ball of fur was a puppy she had many years ago named Zoya. The slippers are a pair of bunny slippers she had at the time. The sight brought a smile to her face as she watched Zoya twist and roll against the slipper. She picked up a charcoal pencil off the easel and began to pull the charcoal pencil across the blank canvas. When she looked back toward the middle of the floor, Zoya was much older now, about five, sitting there. Looking at her with her ice blue eyes telling her it’s time to go for a walk in the park.

Janie erased what she had just sketched. And started to draw two round circles with a nose in the middle, along with a faint arrow of darker hair above the eyes. By the time a new CD started Janie had begun to mix her paints on her palette. Brilliant Blue mixed with a smidgen of titanium white. She brushed blue/white mix of paint over the two circles she had sketched. Adding a bit of white to highlight the eyes at the bottom. With a touch of ivory black, she placed the pupils, and then outlined the eyes. She then switched brushes and feathered in white eyelashes against the black eye outline. She continued the white around the eyes and down the snout. Mixing a bit of the white with black she painted a line between and little above the eyes.

Once she was happy with the faint blackish line between the lines, she sat back in her chair and enjoyed her painting. At that point she realized she felt good again, the fog of stagnation had dissipated, she realized Zoya, as she had many times years ago, brightened her mood. Janie looked back to where Zoya had been before. But she was no longer sitting waiting to go out but was curled up on an old salmon colored sweatshirt in the middle of the floor. Her nose tucked under her tail for warmth. Janie turned back to her painting and finished with a dry brushing the white paint into the empty parts of the canvas.

Satisfied, Janie sat back and wiped her hands against her bib overalls. She then looked toward the middle of the room, but Zoya was no longer there. A jolt of pain ran through Janie. as it had years ago when Zoya died. as she missed Zoya all over again. She felt a pang of sadness, but felt better that she had thought of Zoya again. In a happy but somber mood she cleaned up her palette and brushes, looking back toward the middle of the floor every now and again hoping to see Zoya again.

By the time Bob started singing about a hard rain falling Janie had cleaned up and was staring at the face of Zoya she had just painted. She smiled, as a tear ran down her cheek Janie wiped it away. She pondered what to do with the picture and decided leaving it on the easel was the best option. She then turned off the kerosene heater and carried it back toward the door, turning off the stereo as she went. Slipping her sweater back on she looked back one last time toward the middle of the floor, but it remained empty.

Walking outside she was surprised to see that the sun has nearly completed it’s daily track across the sky and snow has begun to fall. The same night owl now gave Janie a polite woot woot as she walked by.