This summer when I was reorganizing my bedroom and clearing space for a more peaceful and serene setting, I did a little redecorating to usher in the new me. I took off all the old pictures on my walls with the exception of a water color painting of yellow and purple pansies. It is in an exquisite antique frame. It had been painted by my paternal grandmother’s mother, Estella Grant Stamps. She apparently was deaf, but still managed to raise three daughters, and she was married to my grandmother’s father.
If you were to see the painting, I think you would agree that she was a talented artist, though I don’t think she was ever recognized as one. This is one of the few things that I have from my father’s family, so it has a great deal of sentimental value for me.
I have digressed with this little bit of family history. I set out to tell you about a new piece of art I purchased this summer. I wake up to it every morning since I placed it on the wall right next to my bed. It seems to haunt me in a way, and yet it also challenges me, though at the time of purchase this wasn’t clear to me.
It is a photograph of a conch shell resting on the beach with the ocean waves gently curving behind and around and down a stretch of sand. It is printed on a large canvass, so it deceptively looks like a painting. The sunlight is lighting up the spiral details of its head. I was drawn to it for many reasons.
Following the death of my father a number obsession took hold of my brain, and it had me tumbling down a path in a frantic search for patterns. The shell’s spiral seems to symbolize this for me. It is almost like a ghost on my wall and a reminder of hidden messages. Now that I have made it out of this tunnel, it still seems to push me forward.
The other day a restlessness took hold of me. It was as if my subconscious had picked up a new message for me and it was trying to communicate it. I was compelled to look up the word shell in my dictionary, though it felt like I was grasping at straws slipping away from me. And then at the very end of the definition I saw: she’ll. This is slang for she will and she shall. The message pierced my mind and made an imprint.
The picture no longer symbolizes a cast-a-way of life or as a ghost of past lives. Now I see it as a motivational message for the future. She shall overcome and move forward.
I think my thoughts were being influenced by all the female empowerment that I have been watching on the news recently, however, I am taking it on as a personal challenge for myself.
movingforwardslowly 