Ellida and the Sea | quintessence of dust
Here there was no one to watch, no one to critique, and no one to praise.
There was a swelling storm. She was caught up between the folds of sky and sea, yet she stood in silence by herself on that cliff, mind swelling, folding in and out, alive with ideas, her voice drowned by the roar of waves clashing. For she knew that the ocean is a hesitant mistress, whose smile is often a precursor to her sullenness, which she would perhaps soon find out. The fjords were often like this, and today was the same as any other and so she came with her easel and paintbox to the same place on the same cliff on the same day, to paint.
She came to paint the sea. The waves far, far below, expanding and changing in form and rolling, hither and thither. She favoured storms — they gave the waves an intensity and the clouds a fervour that only the largest brush and thickest paints could capture. Here there was no one to watch, no one to critique and no one to praise. Out here, she could be herself, by herself; for art is to console the ones in limbo, and she knew that there was no blue without yellow and orange.
She knew, and she thought until there was nothing to really think about anymore. At times her light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person and she held deep gratitude for herself, for she had lit the flame within every single time, again and again. She saw nothing. No, she must not let her thoughts wander so unrestrained, so wild and unrefined and brutal and how lovely the colours of yellow and orange mixed among the deep waves! She clasped her smallest brush and resumed her painting. In the wind her body swayed, hither and thither.
Small strokes contained so much more than larger ones. Small swirling dashes of blue meeting the unrelenting black rocks. Sometimes it snowed and the rocks would be completely covered till one could not but think that they were the crests of the incoming waters, eroding at the shore. But up this high, she could not make out the shoreline. Ellida always had that about her, that look of otherness, of eyes that see things much too far, and of thoughts that wander off the edge and into the waves.
