The Night Will Dry It

I placed the watercolor brush in the mason jar of storm-colored water. Instead of taking the jar inside the house every day, I have been leaving it on my patio, likely gathering rain or dew without care or judgment. I looked down at the small, 4x4 canvas paper I had just grazed with washes of gray, pink, and sienna. I thought about getting a book to read while the layer dried and my legs even braced themselves to move. I had been meaning to start Karl Ove Knausgaard’s book Spring all day, but my branching attention (Oh, the cover artist Anna Bjerger seems to paint a lot of women who are at ease and still. I want to be at ease and still. And on that note, I wonder if Jenny Odell has written any essays as of late? Maybe she’ll write a book about birding one of these days. Oh, I really need to delete those screenshots of the birding checklists off my phone. Gosh, I have so many pictures of my dogs. I wonder how they’re doing) prevented that from happening. I stared at the shine of wet watercolor on the canvas paper, amazed that it still hadn’t dried. My legs, they did not move my body to go get the book. I had been nursing a headache since the end of my shift at work. I felt almost queasy.

Next to where I sat was the patio sofa. I’ve had the most luxurious naps there amongst birdsong. However, I do not nap much because of the otherworldly feeling that accompanies waking from a nap. I could hear what sounded like a second brood of Starling hatchlings in the gutter above me. I shifted my body onto the sofa, a woman at ease and still. I would simply rest my eyes for a moment because watched paint doesn’t dry I told myself.

I awakened into a panic. Not in a panic. Not with a panic. But as if panic was a room and the act of opening my eyes was my foot stepping over the threshold. The door of panic then slammed behind me. Tremors enveloped my body and my head pounded. I pulled a nearby blanket over my body and greeted my husband Brian who I realized was standing right there. To ground myself through the mild panic attack, I thought about how if things were only slightly different, I would be cooking hibachi right now. If I had not had a headache. If I had not eased myself onto this sofa. If I had not used watercolor as my medium.

Do you know your window is open? my boss had asked me earlier in the morning, worried that it might start raining. I like to leave my car window and sunroof open to circulate fresh air through the car. I live vicariously through other things or people when I can’t enjoy certain pleasures. I leave NPR on for the dogs when I have to leave the house. When I’m glued to a desk, I think of my retired friends doing their yoga, having their morning coffee, reading through interesting articles, curating what their minds take in, curating their time. When listening to other peoples’ problems for 10 hours a day, I think of my garden basking in the sun, the sun tea browning on my patio, my worms sliding over discarded blueberries in their soft, moist world. I think of the liminal worlds where seeds crack open, dried glass blows over a field, and rocks stay submerged under unending currents as I talk to people with their unending problems all day long. When I can’t luxuriate in fresh air, I leave the windows down in my car. I can see my car from where I work at my desk. Yeah, I know, I told my boss. It does look like it’s going to rain, but there’s nothing on the radar. I turned to my colleague Mike who knows how much I always want it to rain and how disappointed I always am that it doesn’t rain. I triple dog dare that sky to rain, I told him, and he laughed.

While grounding myself in a fetal position through the panic attack, I faced Brush Mountain, the most western ridge in Pennsylvania’s ridges and valleys region. This ridge is a net that catches evening light and puts it on miraculous display. Just by looking at the ridge illuminated in a gold-green hue, I knew that the sunset behind me--behind our house—must be gorgeous. The air was electrified with bronze and green. I felt Brian’s body shift so that he could look towards the sunset behind us. Nice sunset, he said. I smiled. I know.

Eventually I pulled my body up into a seated position, bracing myself for more pounding pain in my head. The queasiness radiated through my body. With what felt like confusion, I looked at all my art supplies on the table next to me. That’s right. I was waiting on that watercolor. The thought of gathering all the art supplies and taking them inside annoyed me. I like to believe that I live in a sanctuary where if I leave something somewhere, it is safe and will not be ruined or disappeared. That somehow wind or dew or what-have-you will not affect things. I always begrudgingly cover the patio furniture every night with Brian, simply because he initiates it like the responsible person he is. If I know it won’t rain, I would leave it. But we don’t. We cover everything up. We take everything in.

A raindrop fell on my thigh. Then I noticed wet splotches appearing on the cement patio. I look at my 4x4 painting. It is not lovely and the colors are more muted than what I would have liked. It still looked damp. The night will dry it, I thought to myself. But I didn’t think this as if it were true. I didn’t think that more time in the fresh air would dry it. I didn’t think that just the passing of time would dry it. And when I thought the word dry, I didn’t mean the actual word dry, but something else. More like initiate. More like nurture. That being outside, susceptible to rain, darkness, wind, dew, and the passage of stars and space junk, would somehow make it more meaningful. That the not-lovely 4x4 painting would possess a glorious secret. More glorious than what I was about to do: take a shower, eat peanut butter toast, and fall asleep to a documentary about whales.

It started to rain hard. We covered the patio furniture. I walked into the house, my arms loaded with all my art supplies, Brian holding the door open for me. In passing, I apologized for not making dinner. He told me that it was fine and that he had been grazing. I walked up our steep steps and into the bathroom. I turned on the shower. I opened the bathroom window to be closer to the rain.