Robin Black - Life Drawing

“If you sell me a painting, you won’t be an amateur.”

She laughed. “No, I think then I become a dilettante. And you become an enabler. But you know what I mean. I’m not a trained artist.”

“Maybe not, but you’re obviously a trained something. Observer. Which is more than half the battle. And I barely am either — only a few college courses ahead of you, I’m sure. We’re all faking it half the time, don’t you think?” I walked closer to a large pencil drawing of a pinecone. “How long have you been at this?”

“Oh, you know. Forever. In one way and another. I had an aunt who gave me my first microscope when I was small. Nine or ten. She was appalled by the fluff of my upbringing. All princess pink and ballet class. My mum constantly telling me not to speak so much, as boys disliked it. The microscope got me interested in biology, or maybe in observing, as you say. The drawings followed quite naturally from that. In many ways, my life has been a chaotic one. These …” She indicated the pictures. “These have always been the calm at the center of the storm.”

I told her that surprised me, her description of a chaotic self. She seemed so pulled together to me, so orderly.

She laughed. “Well, you know those people who are better at living other people’s lives than their own? Wise about everyone else’s problems? But then a bit suspect about how they go about things themselves? I think I’m one of those. The tidiness is deceptive covering.”

“I guess that makes the rest of us the lucky ones.” I still wanted to talk about work, probe the depths to which we could talk about our respective processes. “I don’t know if this happens to you,” I said, “but there are moments when I’m so … I don’t know, so excited by a project, not that it’s going to be genius or even great, but just that it has me so by the scruff of my neck. I’m almost too excited to do it then. I can’t sit still. I have to calm down first.”

She seemed to think that over. “No, I’m not sure I’ve ever had that exactly. As I said, my work is … not the exciting part of my life. More of a centering activity. But really just a hobby.”

“So you keep insisting,” I said. “But I’m sure there’s more to it than that.”

“I’m afraid it’s really true. I’m a dabbler. I just … I just do it. I don’t much think it through.”

“Well, we’re all different,” I said. “I have certainly been accused of overthinking it. And Owen is …” Saying his name out loud, I felt a wave of sadness; then of anger; distinctly both. “Owen is in a very rough patch now,” I said. “With work, I mean. But when he’s working well, he isn’t manic at all. Just calm. And happy. All smiles. Not me, I’m like a windup toy that’s been over-wound. Of course, I haven’t seen that mood of his in a very long time.”

She asked me why, and I told her more about Owen’s bad months, about the muse that had abandoned him, the ways I had to tiptoe around his fragility, the stress of that, the tension. I could feel myself abandoning my intention to speak to Alison about work, and creeping further into an area in which I might share secrets about my marriage instead; and as I crept there, I felt accompanying twinges of guilt and of entitlement. But Owen had left me bereft of meaningful conversation, and in the presence of that vacuum entitlement won out.

“Do you think Alison is very beautiful?” I asked him over dinner, a juicy spit-roasted chicken he had picked up in town.

His face was unreadable. “Have we already established that she’s beautiful?” he asked. “So you’re only asking about the very?”

I rolled my eyes. “I think she’s very beautiful,” I said. “I was just wondering if you do too.”

He waited a moment before speaking. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I do too.”

“It’s her eyes, isn’t it?”

He shrugged. “She has nice eyes,” he said. “There are an awful lot of very beautiful women in the world, Gus.”

And if I had wanted to marry one … He didn’t say it, but I said it to myself.

“She wears lipstick when she’s home, by herself. I think that may mean she and I are of different species.”

“But you like her.” It wasn’t a question.

“I suppose.” I wiped my mouth with my napkin. “Don’t you?”

“I’m getting used to the fact of her. I’m not sure I like that , but yes, I like her. I’m just not sure I like having someone so close.”

I didn’t say anything beyond “Huh.” I couldn’t bring myself to agree and it seemed insulting to say I was glad for the company. “So, are you heading back out to work?” I asked.

“You mean, to try and work?” He nodded. “Yes. I am.”

“Excellent,” I said — just a little too brightly to sound genuine. “Don’t worry about the dishes. There’s not much and you did all the hunter-gathering stuff today.”

“Hunted rotisserie chicken and gathered toilet paper,” he said.

“My brave one,” I said. “Yes. You are definitely off dish duty tonight.”

Later, as I looked out our bedroom window toward the barn, I thought: maybe this is what a mother feels like at times. When she can’t help one of her children. When she has to just stand by and watch her daughter strike out on the softball field, watch her son fail at math despite whatever effort he may put in. This ache. This defining double bind of roaring, passionate protectiveness and its equal, weighty, leaden uselessness. And even the impatience with it all; and then the guilt about feeling impatient, about finding it a bit oppressive despite the immeasurable love. Maybe this is what mothering sometimes feels like, I thought.

For the next week or so, as I made more rough sketches of scenes in the house, I didn’t cast them with specific soldiers — aside from Jackie Mayhew, who had emerged as a kind of emblematic figure. I left room only for the boys in the scenes. I wasn’t yet taking on the task of humanizing the figures, as I thought of it; I was just placing them there, these empty people-shaped placeholders, postponing the task about which I was most anxious.

But the postponing itself wasn’t without its unsettling qualities. I fidgeted a lot through those workdays, taking frequent breaks, for walks, to weed patches of garden, to visit Alison, and to check my email — where one afternoon I again found Laine’s name, newly arrived.

Hey, Augie, Do you remember you owe me a full report of your summer? I’m going to bug you until you send it. And you know I will be relentless. So consider yourself bugged. Also, I HAVE to tell you about the critique I had last night because I think it’s such a good example of how MORONIC people are when they think it’s their job to tell you how to do your own work. Especially boys who are convinced that they are the next great artistes of the world.…

It went on like that for a good while, a full account of her long night of fools and pretenders. But none of this is surprising, I suppose , she wound up. We both know that many people who paint are idiots. And there were also some decent points made, so all in all, for all my whining, I’m glad I’ve taken this class. But mostly I am sick of talking about myself and really you do owe me a better email than the last one. Please!

And then:

Looks like I’ll be back in Philly for the wedding at the end of October. I did tell you Dad’s marrying Miriam, right?

Ideleted it.

I went into the trash folder and opened it again. Reread those words. Then closed it and restored it to my inbox. Then signed out of my email, shutting my laptop, keeping my hands pressed there, as though it might just pop open again.