An impressionistic portrait of a woman with a bird on her shoulder. The quote continues: sometimes it's simply another human sitting beside you refusing to let you fight your war alone. Wonder Mike and I were walking this past weekend and came upon a woman sitting on a nearby street corner. Her head was in her hands and she was sobbing. I stopped, crouched down and asked if she was ok. She said no, she wasn't - that she was so sad. I asked if I could sit with her, she nodded, and so I sat on the sidewalk. I asked if she needed anything, and she replied just someone to listen. I could do that, and so I did for much of the afternoon. I could share her story here - her impending homelessness, her trauma, her life of struggles, her loss of love and employment and school. Instead, my thoughts keep going to the people who pretended we were not there: a big truck that parked, running, tailpipe in our faces for twenty minutes despite my attempts to wave it off to idle somewhere else; a lady who decided to mow the lawn all around us, grass flying everywhere; a dozen passersby who never acknowledged us at all. I thought “this is what it feels like to be invisible in our society. This is what this woman feels like every day.” It is hard for me to sit and listen without leaping in to offer advice, solutions, opinions, consolation. But sometimes people just want to be seen and heard. So I listened, occasionally reflecting back her own resiliance, her big-heartedness, her long period of suffering, her loneliness, her pain. And I waited, solutions and advice in my pocket, ready to rescue. In the end, when she was no longer crying and was calm, she said she had pills in her bag and had been ready to take drastic measures. Instead, she thanked me for listening, asked me for a hug (which I willingly gave) and decided to go meet a friend and try life again. She just needed someone to listen. I can do that.
Sometimes We Walk With Others
oil on paper
14 x 19
sometimes
the rescue
is
not
heroic. - REVIVEYOURROAR
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#art #painting #portraiture #fantasyart #putabirdonit #oilpainting
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