As They Are For Now
It usually starts around 3 am. My mind slowly awakes and I realize where I am. Usually at 3 am I start thinking about the affair, some tiny aspect of what happened and like a loose thread I will begin to tug at a memory until my mind unravels.
This morning I'm thinking about the day I hung the paintings in her house. I remember now that it was long after I had delivered them to her house on the last day of school in June 2013. When we saw her and her family at the Asbury Park Triathlon she had told me that it was time to hang the paintings and that was in late August. So it must have been late August, early September, but before she and my husband went on the FoxNews fly fishing trip to Montana’s Bighorn River where she got herpes. So yes, this is the thread I pulled this morning, the day I hung the paintings in her house.
They were leaning against the wall in her living room in the same spot they had been on that day in June when I drove each one to her house. Each canvas is about 44" wide by 72” tall, so I could just fit one at a time in my Ford Flex. I remember it was a warm day and I was sweating from the effort. She and her husband wanted them leaning against the wall and they would later decide the order in which to hang them. The paintings were to be hung as the triptych they were, three children "As They Are For Now". I remember writing that title on the back of each canvas along with the name of the child, I dated it 6/2013 and signed my name Jean E. Manning in black sharpie. I did the same on the wooden stretcher along the bottom. Long ago I stopped signing my work on the front in paint, because I thought it was too "showy". Its obvious to me that I am a part of each painting. It isn't necessary to shout it with a signature on the painting itself.
As I'm pulling this thread I remember the promise to myself that I didn't keep. When the paintings were complete, hung on the wall, the check cashed, I had promised that I would speak to her. I would tell her that I was uncomfortable with her bike riding with my husband on the weekends. I would tell her that I thought it was inappropriate and because they kept it secret from me, it was just wrong. I was uneasy with her working for him and spending so much time together, training for triathlons, lunches in the city, not to mention all the travel. I wanted to tell her how nervous I was whenever I was around her. I didn't like them commuting together. I'm his wife and this was all too much. Since I'm hung on her wall now, maybe she would understand. Maybe she would see me as real.
Well, as I unravel these thoughts my chest tightens and I feel sick. I didn't keep my promise. What if I was wrong? What if they weren't "into each other" as my psychic told me? BUT, here is the "Big What If", IF I had kept my promise, then Montana may not have happened. She wouldn't have gotten herpes. I wouldn't be so sad about losing my Montana memories at the fishing lodge.
The day I hung the paintings, she asked if she could help. I have a process for hanging triptychs. I'm working with three separate canvases, but they are hung together as one. "You start with the middle", I tell her. I have brought my quilt ruler, a level, a pencil, a measuring tape, my hammer and three strong hooks. I have her hold up the middle painting as I step back within the room to gauge its height. I think I switched places with her, me holding the painting, her stepping back to get her opinion. Once we both decided the height, I marked the wall in pencil along the top of the painting. Then I had to measure the distance between the top of the painting and the wire when its held taught. Then I measure this distance down from the middle and that is where the first hook goes into the wall. "Here is the tricky part", I tell her. Now you take the measurement of the width of the painting and add the distance you want between each painting and you mark the next spot. When I hook and wire a painting in a triptych I try my best to make them all even, but its hard to be exact. Therefore, with each painting I have to measure again where the top will be to where the wire is taut. The level comes into play so that each painting's top edge is the same distance from the ceiling. She and I work together and when we are done Felix, Warren, and Hazel are now smiling in her living room.
I am now inside their home within each brush stroke. My arms pulled and stretched each canvas and stapled it onto each stretcher. I played my song track as I brushed on the gesso. I worked from the previous October to the following June looking into the eyes of her children until they stared back at me. I am now hanging on her wall and yet she still sat on my husband's face that September in a cabin along Montana’s Bighorn River where my soul once lived.
