The gleam in a young pup's eye

Revisiting past versions of self with new brushstrokes

Dear reader,

I made two enormous paintings of Sam and me (no Macaroni this time) during lockdown in 2020. I loved these paintings because they were imaginative: me in a flamingo dress and Sam in that leather jacket he wore to go out on the town in Austin. They were not the people we had been reduced to in 2020, sitting in our home, devoid of that spark. They were the best version of us.

Here’s the thing: the portrait of Sam had one detail that stuck in my craw every time I saw it. One of my trademarks is that anime shine I put in my portrait subjects’ eyes. The dullness of the year indoors snuck into Sam’s eyes - no gleam. 

In 2012, I tweeted this:

“I have a paintbrush I use only to capture the gleam in a young pup's eyes. So basically I'm living my dream.”

I treasured this little ritual at the end of a painting session. But there I was, the gleam pup’s-eye paintbrush dry. I walked past this portrait for three years. I thought about the vacantness of Sam’s eyes, how it didn’t reflect who he was and had become more of in the subsequent years, but I didn’t do anything. To me, a painting on a wall is finished. So what got into me yesterday?

Yesterday, I added those gleams to his eyes. I couldn’t sit with it any longer. 

I truly never change a painting once it’s “done.” But there’s something about a portrait of someone you love and how it reflects both them and you. Sam has been through a hell of a life in the 9 years I’ve known him. He’s had bike accidents, soul-destroying jobs, lay-offs, and grief. He’s had nothing in our bank accounts while watching a roach crawl past him in the world’s cruddiest one-bedroom. He’s sat in a much bigger, nicer apartment with his beautiful wife for a year and a half and he has survived it all. Hasn’t he earned his gleam?

But the gleam wasn’t about him. It was about me. The stubbornness of being finished with something was stuck inside of me. The feeling that maybe that time didn’t deserve a shine. The idea that once a version of me existed in the world it couldn’t be updated, it was frozen in time. That idea is not correct. Yesterday, I updated my definition of “versions of self.”

Sometimes I feel ashamed of people I have been in the past: times I didn’t do what I knew was right. Bags I fumbled in friendships. Not standing up for myself in the moment. I can’t change those situations, but I can change the way I look at myself. I can change the grace I give myself and display these portraits  proudly in the pantheon of versions of myself. Every flawed moment in my past got me here, and they deserve the shine of the present. I can’t be right all the time (hi mom), but I can be kind to that wrong moment in myself. There are few but there aren’t that many.

I’ve been embarking on new portraits of Sam and me. I want these portraits to incorporate all the changes we’ve gone through in the preceding three years, but I also want them to stand firmly in the moment we’re in. We’re the sum of our parts, and isn’t that shiny and special?

The holidays can sometimes come with grief and regret. Sometimes I regret that the last Christmas my dear Aunt Betsy was alive, I didn’t wait longer at her doorstep when I dropped off Christmas mushrooms. I could’ve called a few more times and had a last loving moment with her. But I’m choosing this holiday to be glad she knew that I loved her, in mushroom form. I’m choosing to embrace the things I did right and accept the things I did wrong. I know I’m not alone in holding onto regrets and the last thing on my wishlist this year is that we all give ourselves the second look I gave to a 2020 portrait that could use some love. You could use that love, too. 

Thanks for reading. It’s been such a delight to write for you this year - and an honor to, for the first time in my life, make money for my writing. If you love this newsletter, please forward it to someone who needs it. You may also consider throwing in $5 a month for the substack here!

I hope that gleam in your eye is extra shiny today. 

xo,

Emma