‘Tomorrow…’
Colin McCahon, Tomorrow
I have a framed print of this early work of NZ Artist Colin McCahon painted in 1958 /59. It hangs above our dining room table in a corner of the room that has its own muted light and natural shadow, and casts an air of mystery. The image is clear but its script evaded me for quite some time. I understand the artist's hope that an image will at some point speak on its own behalf, inviting a resonance that won’t necessarily be accompanied by an explanation rather a sense of soul connection, a deep intuiting and an invitation to join the canvas and merge with its creator's offering.
My first impression drew me into the landscape where a grey river meanders through the dark foreground and low hillscape meeting a blue sky that refuses to let the painting despair. I wondered about the random stroke of brown extending down from the top of the painting, but let that have its own felt presence and I decided to leave the script to itself also, waiting to reveal itself one day. What poet ever spells anything out clearly in their use of cryptic words and deeply hidden meaning? This image and its storyline were destined to draw me back and back, over years in fact, waiting for an epiphany, experience and timing that would make sense of the piece to me, yet perhaps not McCahon. This too is the artist's plan.
‘Tomorrow was an unfortunate painting’, said McCahon, ‘in that it wouldn’t go right, and I got madder and madder. I hurled a whole lovely quart tin of black Dulux at the board and reconstructed the painting out of the mess.’ *
Wow. I wouldn’t mind having this kind of result if I threw a tin of paint onto a canvas!!
Today, exactly one year ago on March 15 2022 I sat down to pen a blog, my second for that year. It was called ‘All the Greys’, an ode to farewell my youthful brunette hair and embrace the greys that were determined to have their way with me in my ageing process. Through some kind of serendipitous coincidence here I am again on that same day, a year later on March 15 2023 with this broody grey image on my mind.
Casting my mind back to March last year, I try to imagine from that vantage point what my ‘tomorrow’,( or today) might have looked like. What were my hopes, aspirations and dreams. All we get to live is a day, and only one at a time. Resonating with McCahon, this past year has seen a number of curved balls (or cans of paint to use his imagery) thrown in my direction. They have come in quick succession, too fast to catch or control, like for example Cyclone Gabrielle who blew through recently and unexpectedly, leaving her calling card in scars and trails of destruction behind her.
In the moment there’s not much that can be done about any of it apart from waiting for the paint to dry to see what shape the canvas of life might take.
‘Tomorrow will be the same…’
A year on, I am still doing the same things. I just planted an orange tree because it’s Autumn and the ground is soft (Gabrielle’s gift!). Leaves are beginning to fall from the trees and I have big sacks on the ready to collect them, nourishment for next Springs vegetable garden. The general pattern of my life today looks the same today as it did on this day last year. But if my life is mostly the same shape, what of…
‘but not as this is’
What’s changed and what’s not the same are the choices I’ve been endeavouring to make in response to the effects of the various storms that have blown through this past trip around the sun. Through awareness and practice I find myself leaning in more, taking my time in the midst of wind changes to notice and discern what my particular stance and response might be. Maybe I am standing with a subconscious lean, like the Kanuka trees in my garden that still bear the mark of Gabrielle, bracing myself. This is not a defensive kind of bracing, rather a hopeful preparedness for the unknown that is enabled by being more conscious of my felt reactions, at the time, to challenges that come my way. I’m taking more notice.
In the mundane sameness of our lives, every now and then we need something that comes along to disturb and disrupt our status quo. It seems that this is the only way our attention can be averted to what’s really important, a shaking of our foundations and testing of our foothold to reveal our anchors, and our strength.
Life may look the same, but our view and response to it may be more helpful if we tend and give credence to our inner world; to nourish and care for our souls.
I have had this image on my wall for many years, and only recently has it begun to reveal its voice to me, and then that’s just my interpretation. But like all things rich and nourishing, time is the essence and patience is the invitation.
*quote from https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/collection/69-142/colin-mccahon/tomorrow