Isabelle Trubella Paints the World
A Parable
Isabelle Trubella Determines to Paint the World
Isabelle Trubella came to a decision. She would paint the world.
It was an immense task she could have no hope of completing in her lifetime, and yet, she told herself, even the greatest task is little more than beginning and continuing.
And so, she began.
It was simple enough at first, as beginning a task so often is. She simply chose to begin. She carried her easel and box of paints outside of her house, looked about, settled on a view, and began to paint. Not until the sun had set and the warm summer evening taken hold, did she consider the burden before her.
I have not nearly enough canvas to paint the world. And where should I keep it if I did?
Undaunted, she determined to use what canvas she had and put off the problem until it was bearing down upon her. It was a pleasant time of year to paint outside, and she had light enough in her house to paint in the evenings. She was sanguine and suffused with pride for having begun.
For days, she glowed with joy of new love.
For days.
Four days.
For it was four days before her first true crisis fell upon her. What canvas she had was covered with landscapes, still lives, details and broad views of the world she knew so well. The ancient cottonwood that loomed over her front porch. The hills rolling off into the distance, still full with tall grasses. The shed, too crowded and overdue for a spring cleaning, the chipping paint with lichen creeping up from the base, the degrading shingles just barely keeping the rain out. The unmade bed obscuring the books spilling about the floor. The kitchen sink, a single dish soaking as its mates dried on the counter. Four days of the world she could almost paint from memory.
Almost.
There was much more to paint, even in her own home. She might spend a year before her task must, of necessity, drive her to travel and adventure. Her supplies were dwindling, this was true. No uncovered canvas remained. Yet, though canvas there was none, the paint remained, as did her will to continue. She determined to move forward with her immense task.
Raising her brush to the kitchen wall, she painted a small image, perhaps no larger than the hand she used to paint it, of a stain upon the floor. It was a focused piece, enlarged detail of an image so small most would not notice, memorialized upon the wall, a celebration of her failure to clean. Upon the floor, she painted a larger view of the kitchen, this one turned away from the sink and capturing the view from below, slipping across the corners into the ceiling.
This was the moment, four days into her task, that daunted her. Not the loss of canvas. That was simply a challenge she had already overcome with cleverness. So, too, she told herself, shall I overcome the loss of paint, though I can hardly imagine how. What daunted her was something greater. For, as she stepped back to admire her work, her broad view of the kitchen painted upon the floor, she was terrified to see that she had failed to include the painting itself.
She sat. She sulked. She closed her eyes.
And she breathed.
There was much she could not see. She told herself, I can paint the ants coming in and out of their home, but there is no way to observe what is inside the hill. I can imagine it, but painting what I imagine the world to be is quite different from painting the world. I should stick to what I can see, and call that the world.
Though the world would change before she could paint it, she accepted that she would simply document what she saw in real time. The flowering prairie that fell inside her first landscape would be covered with snow soon enough. Yet, she told herself, I can only know the world as I observe it. I shall paint the world before me and know the world will change.
On the fifth day, she returned to her job, assisting a variety of teachers at her local grammar school. Though a full day of painting was lost, she told herself that her task was not to paint the world quickly, but merely to paint the world.
Merely.
The time would come, she knew, when she would have painted all she could see while remaining at home. At the moment, however, there was still plenty to paint nearby. The time to leave her friends and income behind had not yet arrived.
When the need came to replenish her paint supplies, when her paintings became focused on new and less interesting palettes that did their best without help from the empty tubes, she was glad of her meager, but still present, income.
At twenty-three days, however, she felt as if she must give up her task or leave her comfortable life behind. I could, she told herself, continue to paint my small world in greater and greater detail. I could spend my lifetime making excuses, telling myself that some small detail has been missed, that a deeper view within some view I have already painted is worthy of a painting itself. That the haystacks look different at each time of day, of year, that I cannot truly paint the world if I don’t catch every detail both in space and in time. Yet, that is not the task I have set for myself. I have determined to paint the world, and to do so, I must see the world.
And Isabelle Trubella, she who would paint the world, packed just enough to carry upon her back, and began her journey.
Isabelle Trubella Has a Dream
The principal of the school she was leaving behind was gracious.
“So few of us have dreams,” she said, “and fewer find the courage to act upon them. When I was younger, I too had a dream. It was my dream to run a school. Now that I have done that, have achieved my dream, I sometimes wonder if it is enough, if I should pursue new dreams. I wonder if leaving this dream behind to pursue a new one is a betrayal of myself, my younger self. If leaving this dream behind for another means that I had the wrong dream, that I wasted my life pursuing something I would only throw in the rubbish bin.”
Isabelle asked about her new dream.
“It is not much. I should like to travel the world and visit my students, see what has become of their lives, understand if I had an impact, and if that impact was good. I have spent my life setting children on their journeys, and I should like to see how those journeys fared.”
“Why not come with me? Though my dream is not to travel the world, I cannot paint it without doing so. Perhaps I shall come across your students along the way.”
“It is a lovely thought,” said the principal, “but I have duties here. Responsibilities. I cannot just walk away.”
“Cannot?”
“Well,” considered the principal, “let us say will not.”
Isabelle Trubella stood up from behind her easel and gently lifted the scrap of plywood she had been painting, handing it to the principal.
“What is it?”
“It is a painting of the world. Well, part of it, anyway.”
The principal thanked her. For her painting, her service, her friendship. Isabelle accepted the gratitude with grace as she packed up her supplies and left her now former place of employment on her journey to paint the world.
She did not get far, for the world is large and there is much to paint.
Isabelle Trubella Is a Vandal
In a village just distant enough to have its own school, Isabelle painted street views, landscapes, portraits. She painted cracks in the tree bark, half-eaten food at a café, the top of a steeple too distant to see clearly. She painted stray dogs and wild children.
And though many of the paintings were upon items that could be carried away, she never took them with her. Sometimes she gave them as gifts. Sometimes she traded them for money, supplies, lodging, or food. Sometimes she simply left them behind.
In a park, she sat behind a bench, painting upon the wooden slats. She painted a scene of ducks floating along the pond she could view though the cracks. The woman that sat on the bench, blocking her view, did not see her. When Isabelle addressed her, she was startled.
“Oh, I am sorry for startling you. It is only that I was watching the ducks upon the pond, and I can no longer see them.”
The woman, who was now settled and had no desire to move, said simply, “Well, the bench is for sitting upon, not for crouching behind. There is still room if you choose to sit upon it.”
“Oh, thank you,” Isabelle replied, “but I prefer to watch the pond from here. Would you be kind enough to slide over a bit?”
The woman, nonplussed, said only, “Do as you choose. Sit on the grass if you like. I care little. But I am comfortable, and I shall stay here. If you would like to watch the ducks through the back of the bench, you can do as you have asked me to do, and move over a bit, to a spot where my body no longer obscures your view.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” said the painter. “The thing is, if you don’t mind my explaining my situation somewhat, I am painting a landscape upon the back of this bench and would very much like to finish it. The landscape is of the view between the slats. While I could slide over to refresh my view, I would need to slide back to paint. Back and forth. I would be grateful if you could save me the trouble.”
“You are a vandal?”
“I am painting the world.”
“Upon public property?”
“Yes. Well…yes…I suppose…” Isabelle flustered, “I suppose…I am part of the public.”
“That is not the point. You can’t just go around painting things. You need permission. Approval. You must go before the park committee, perhaps the village council. I’m not really sure who approves what, but approval there must be. By someone in charge. Someone with authority. Being a member of the public does not give you the right to vandalize what belongs to all of us.”
Isabelle sat in shame and confusion. She did not want to cause harm, did not want to make people angry. She simply wanted to paint the world.
Sitting back upon her hands, her palette resting upon the grass, she said, “I do not wish to make anyone unhappy. Perhaps, upon finishing my painting, I will paint over it in the color of the bench. Then it would be just as those in authority expect it to be, and I can also have painted this part of the world.”
The woman was sharp. “Very well. Do so, and I shall not inform the police.”
“Thank you,” replied Isabelle. “Will you kindly slide over then, that I might finish my painting before covering it up?”
“What need have you to finish the painting if you are only going to cover it up?”
The answer was already poised upon Isabelle’s lips.
“That I might paint the world.”
The woman rose, infuriated, and huffed off to another bench. She was angry. She would carry that anger with her for most of the day. Not until many weeks later would she consider her anger, wonder if she had overreacted. When she did, she went back to the park to look at the painting. She wandered the path, looking at all the park benches, not sure which one was the right one, and all of which looked the same.
I have been rash, she told herself, as she mourned her loss of joy.
Isabelle Trubella Meets a Scholar
Not everyone Isabelle Trubella met was angry. Many were curious, friendly, helpful. Some were grateful for the gift of a painting they might hang on their wall, or perhaps place in the corner of the floor in the case of a painted rubbish bin one lucky soul took home.
In a seaside town, Isabelle met a scholar who asked her many questions about the various challenges she faced in painting the world. He asked her about how she determined when to paint a wider view and when to paint detail. He asked about whether she ever ran out of a particular color in the midst of painting, and whether she stopped to procure the right color, or continued with some poor substitute. He asked how painting on different surfaces affected the tone of a painting. The gentleman seemed genuinely interested in the process of painting the world, almost as if he planned to attempt such a thing himself.
He did not.
“You ask many questions about how to paint the paint the world, yet you have no desire to do so yourself. What do you intend to do with the knowledge you gain?”
“I suppose knowledge is an end in itself. Perhaps I am not unlike you, and rather than desiring to paint the world, I simply desire to know the world.”
Isabelle smiled at this revelation and felt joy at the common bond. Putting down her brush, which was frayed and overdue for replacement, she asked why he desired to know the world.
“Why do you desire to paint it?”
To this, Isabelle had no reply, though suspected the answer might be of some importance. She picked up her brush and looked at it.
“This brush,” she said to the scholar, “is overdue for replacement. I have a spare, but I think, when this painting is done, I shall seek out supplies, that I might keep my spare for a time when supplies cannot be found.”
The scholar agreed that this was a wise course of action.
“I will, however, continue this painting with my old brush, this exploration of your shoes painted upon the cover of this old dictionary. I like the quality. The style is unlike my usual paintings, sloppier, no doubt as a result of my aged brush. Perhaps I shall keep this old brush after I have refreshed my supplies, save it for the occasional change of pace, for the odd wild painting, for stormy days or tall waves upon the sea.”
The academic gentleman agreed that this was a wise course of action.
“And you? You who would know the world. Do you change your style for different subjects? Do you ask questions in different ways to different types of people? Do you listen differently to different people? Do you sometimes leave people behind for books?”
“Books are people,” said the academic gentleman. “And yes. Yes, I do.”
Isabelle Trubella agreed that this was a wise course of action.
She handed the wet but finished painting upon the dictionary cover to her new friend and left in search of new supplies.
Isabelle Trubella Paints the Sea
Isabelle Trubella sailed across the sea. At first, she painted very little. She stayed in her room, troubled by the waves, the rocking, the unsteadiness of the ship. In time, however, she was gifted with sea legs and began to spend more time upon deck. She painted many nooks and crannies of the ship, of course, but spent most of her time painting the sea. At first, she thought all of her paintings would be the same. That, although the quality of light might change, the clouds come and go, even the waves rise and fall, that, more or less, the sea was the sea. That one view of the endless sea would be very much like any other view of the sea. Not only did she think this, but she believed it.
In time, however, she came to know many seas. Even comparing one calm sea at noon beneath a clear sky to another calm sea at noon beneath a clear sky, she found that each place upon the sea had its own character. The changes were subtle and difficult to show, but the longer she stared at the unending vastness of the sea, the more those subtleties became clear. At times, she exaggerated the differences, the way a street artist doubles the size of a tourist’s nose. She would create a palette much like the last, then focus upon the feature she felt defined this new sea upon the sea.
Late at night, while painting the stars, a sailor asked her about it.
“I have studied your paintings, even as you study the world. I have stared at expressions of a sea you and I have both seen, have both stared at, wondered at. I have stared at your paintings and thought I recognized the sea. The specific sea. The sea of twelve days back, the day I spilled my coffee upon the deck. I cannot say the painting so much looked like that sea as reminded me of that sea. It is as if your painting told the story of that sea. Put something before me that would help me know that sea, even as it failed to quite match my memory.”
Isabelle Trubella agreed that her paintings often did not look identical to their subjects. She wondered if more skill was required to properly paint the world.
“I suppose there are many ways to paint the world properly,” the sailor replied. “One might also photograph the world, and there would be little debate as to the truth of those images. Yet, even two photographers standing side by side, watching the same subject, will come up with slightly, if not entirely different results.”
Isabelle Trubella agreed this was true.
“Your paintings, then, tell your story. What you see. Not the world, but the world through your eyes. You cannot separate yourself from your work. Or, I suppose, choose not to. In any case, I enjoy looking at your stories of the sea. I like remembering each sea, their flavors, their style, their attitudes. I don’t always remember them the way you painted them, but I often do. And when I do not, I enjoy asking myself if I missed something. If I did not give the sea enough credit that day. If I did not listen.
“It is a blessing to have a second chance.”
And Isabelle Trubella, she who would paint the world, wondered if her paintings stole memories, only to replace them with her own.
Isabelle Trubella Paints the Future
Isabelle Trubella found herself in place where she did not understand the language. This made things difficult, though far from impossible. For, though it took her a long time to use words that could be understood, her skill as a painter helped to bridge the gap. When she desired something, and could not speak her desire, she would paint it. Though it was her goal to paint the world as she saw it, not as she wished it to be, the tool was there when she needed it.
While it feels a little like cheating, she told herself, perhaps I am only painting a scene shortly before it has taken place. I can, after all, change the painting if it turns out to be merely a wish.
She painted herself sitting at a table in a café, nibbling upon a light repast. When she handed it to the proprietor, it was enough.
She painted herself sleeping upon the ground outside a lodging house, shivering. When she handed it to the landlady, it was enough.
She painted herself trading a painting for art supplies. When she handed it to the storekeeper, it was enough.
In time, she learned words. She learned phrases. She learned to converse. Before she left that land of strange speech, she could engage in stilted, though pleasant conversation. She found her limited ability with this language peaceful. She could make enough conversation to get by, make the occasional friend, but also rely upon her awkwardness to be left alone much of the time. Though she enjoyed making friends, she also enjoyed being alone, and her lack of language aided her in the latter.
One day, she found herself in a longer conversation than usual, and wondered if she had finally mastered the language. She was considering a city scene from a lonely sidewalk when she caught herself, mid-conversation, realizing that she was speaking her mother tongue. It came so naturally that she had, at first, failed to notice.
“Are you a traveler?”
“I travel. That is certain. Does that make me a traveler?”
“I see what you mean. I suppose it does by definition, but it is not what I meant.”
“You want to know if I travel for joy. If I am driven from place to place by desire to see the world, to seek adventure.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I suppose in some ways the answer must be yes. I am driven from place to place by my desire to see the world, and though I do not seek adventure, I have often found it. Yet, my desire to see the world is not an end in itself. I seek not to see the world, but to paint it. It is only that I do not know how to paint the world without seeing it.”
“You seek to paint the world?”
“It is my life’s work. At least, it is today. It was not always my life’s work to paint the world, but it is a journey I have begun and intend to continue.”
“Until you are done?”
“I suppose.”
“Until you have painted the world?”
“I suppose.”
“But surely you can’t believe it possible. Surely you can’t expect to actually paint the world. The whole world.”
“Must I?”
“Must you what?”
“Must I believe it possible? Must I believe that I can actually paint the whole world?”
“Of course. How can you possibly find the courage to keep going without hope? If the task is impossible, if there be no hope of finishing, then you are simply swimming upstream. What value can there be in pursuing something you have no hope of accomplishing?”
“I don’t know where courage comes into it. Or swimming for that matter. I simply paint. When I have completed one painting, I begin another. It is my intention to paint the world. Not to have painted the world.”
“But it cannot be done.”
“Perhaps.”
“You will fail.”
“Perhaps.”
“You are a fool.”
“Perhaps.”
“Well, then farewell sweet fool. May your travels be filled with good fortune.”
Isabelle Trubella passed the city scape to her new friend and bade farewell. Not until she had reached her boarding house and settled in for the night, did she wonder if the locals had a word for fool.
Isabella Trubella Paints He Who Would Sing the World
The world is, of course, more empty of people than it is full. Isabelle Trubella became accustomed to slow, lonely journeys between villages, through farmlands and forests. She did her best to prepare herself for these stretches, to pack enough food to last her until she might reach the next town, or perhaps a lonely farmhouse. She also learned to temper her hunger, to accept a hungry belly as her normal state, dismiss the daydreams of warm bread and soft cheese. On one cool evening, when her food had nearly gone, she painted a banquet to soothe her angry stomach.
She was, however, largely blessed in that her food generally lasted her between encounters, and those she met were generous in sharing their bounty, even when their bounty was small.
One such shared meal was with another traveler, a man who came upon her as she painted upon a boulder the view of her lonely road through the forest, a diminishing path surrounded by trees, not even a small mammal gracing the landscape. She was halfway through the painting when she heard music approach her from behind.
He, the singer, did not notice her until he was nearly upon her, at which time his song changed. He stopped, still singing, until his song came to a quiet end.
Isabelle Trubella thanked him for his beautiful song and asked for the name.
“It is nameless,” he replied.
“It must be a very old song, then. I’m sad that I’ve never heard it before, but glad to know of it now.”
“It is a very young song, though it has no name. The song, in fact, has just been born, for I only just sang it for the first time. Is the song of my journey down this road, and of my encounter with a painter.”
“You mean me?”
“Of course.”
“You were singing of me? How delightful.”
At which moment the man once again began to sing. Isabelle Trubella did not recognize the words, though she seemed to recognize the song. It was nostalgic in some ways, a song that reminded her of painting, of the forest, of meeting new friends along her journey, and something else, something she could not quite name.
When the man stopped singing, she shared her thoughts.
“Of course,” he replied. “It is simply a song of our meeting. Of this moment.”
“The words were beautiful. Is that the language of your people?”
“It is a language of my own. Honestly, I am less sure of what each word means than of what they mean together. A collection of sounds that speak to my life. To the world.”
“Is this another very young song of your own?”
“It is. Was. I rarely sing a song twice. I sing what I see, what I hear, and then move on to the next song. It is my intention to sing the world.”
“How lovely,” said Isabelle Trubella. “It is my intention to paint the world.”
“How lovely,” said the man, who then began to sing.
A song of she who would paint the world. A song of intention, of longing, of hope and courage. A song of friendship, of loneliness, of love. A song that worked its way into the colors of her landscape, that brought a subtlety to the palette missing before the song, now brought to life, not with an image of the man, but with an overall sense of the man, or the song, of the way in which it changed the scene before her.
He sat down to eat his lunch, sharing his tough bread, hard cheese, and old wine with his new friend. Grateful, she stopped painting and sat upon the road with him. There are few things as nice as a meal when you are truly hungry. She smiled from the inside out with satisfaction, a smile that only grew as her companion sang the meal.
After the meal and another song, she turned toward the direction from which the man had come and began painting him upon the other side of the boulder. He sang of her painting him but did not stay for her to finish. His song was done, and he was ready to sing a new one, this of a further journey down the road, now at her back as she stayed to finish a painting of what had been.
The songster appeared upon the boulder half as present, and half in spirit, a shadow of a man who had come and gone before he could be captured.
Isabelle Trubella continued her journey into lands of which she now knew songs but had not yet seen. As she did, she whistled the song of her friend.
Isabelle Trubella Finds a Home
Isabelle Trubella had many adventures. She traveled from place to place, made friends, learned the ways of many people, and always painted. She painted across cities, towns, and villages. She painted across deserts, forests, and seas. She painted atop mountains and from the valleys below. She painted smiles, frowns, and looks of despair. She painted on canvas, rocks, and roads. She painted on doors, boards, and trees. She gave paintings away and left paintings behind.
And she fell in love.
Not with a person, although that too. Often. This time, it was with a place.
A generous soul in the village she was painting offered a room in her home. This homeowner had, once upon a time, rented the room out to strangers, but she was an old woman now, had enough money to satisfy her few needs, and was simply grateful for the company.
Isabelle Trubella moved into this room, made herself at home in the kitchen, in the parlor, in the house. She would sit up evenings with the old woman, talking, listening, painting. During the day, she would wander the village, talking, listening, painting. And, in time, she came to think of the place as home.
“I’ve spent so much of my life traveling,” she said to the old woman one night as they sipped tea by the fire, “that I have lost track of how long. Decades, surely. When I began my journey, my journey to paint the world, I was young. Now I am old. Well, older, anyway. I have less energy than when I started. My body hurts after sleeping on the ground for the night. I am a better painter, of that there can be little question. But I am weary of traveling. I think back to my youth, to my home, and wonder if I should ever have begun my journey at all.”
The old woman nodded. She wondered out loud if Isabelle Trubella might be in need of rest. Perhaps not painting, for a while, anyway, might be what she needed.
“But if I stop,” Isabelle replied, “I might never begin again.”
“It is true.”
“And it is still my intention to paint the world.”
“It is a good intention.”
Isabelle Trubella said that sometimes great deeds required great sacrifice. That if she is to paint the world, she must continue to travel. That, though she wished it were not true, she saw no way to attend to her task without suffering. That she must find the strength to carry her through.
“Must you?” asked the old woman.
“What do you mean?” replied the painter.
“Well…I suppose one cannot paint the world without seeing it. This is true. And yet, one cannot paint the world well without understanding it.”
“I suppose that is true. I have worked to understand the world, even as I see it.”
“Yes. No doubt. But you are a traveler. In a world of people, you are unusual. You are outside the world. Outside most of the world. For most of us do not travel. Most of us make homes. Most of us create a place inside our communities. We nest and settle, learn to see our small world in greater and greater detail. Some of us raise families, as your parents did with you, though not all. But most of us stay. If you want to understand the world, you must also understand what it is to stay. To see one place in greater and greater detail. To dig beneath the surface and study.”
And Isabelle Trubella stayed.
She painted acorns and snowflakes. Beetles and desiccated leaves. She painted the shadow of a pile of dirt no bigger than a penny, and the memory of an ant that passed across as she studied it. She painted a tooth of a dear friend, and gap next to it. She painted a single star.
And people. Babes who grew into children. Children to adults. She painted friends, neighbors, and strangers who became less so. She painted them at work and at play. At festivals and in quite contemplation. In revery and obsequy.
She painted her home.
For eleven years, two months, and fourteen days she stayed in that place, painting that small corner of the world in greater detail than it had ever been considered before. Yet, the time came when her greatest friend, the old woman who she had continued to sit with each night, who had taken Isabelle in, showed her the value of a home, could no longer stay. Her time in that world had ended, leaving Isabelle Trubella to mourn for her loss and continue her journey.
Isabelle Trubella Paints the Dead
At first, the act of painting the old woman, now deceased, was an act of mourning. She had, of course, painted the old woman many times, in varying levels of detail. This time, however, Isabelle Trubella saw something which made the old woman appear completely different. She was not sure what it was, but the dead woman was nothing at all like the sleeping woman. Yet, she was more than simply an object, for even a still life, if you will excuse the metaphor, has life.
Isabelle Trubella was troubled by the painting, which she felt to be her second greatest work. It seemed to come from someone else, as if she had channeled some other painter and only provided the mechanics. This was not the first time she had felt this way, but the others had been more of a partnership, as if she could not have painted some special moment without the help of something outside of herself. At those times she had been a partner with the outside help. She created with the muse, rather than for her.
This painting of death, to put it simply, came from someone else.
And it frightened her.
She carried the canvas to a carpenter across the village for framing. She asked him to create a frame from the freshest of wood. From wood that had only just been harvested, that it might begin its eternal rest alongside another whose rest had only just begun.
“The frame will be no good,” the carpenter told her. “Wood continues to thrive long after its death. It will change as it dries, as the last of its life leaves it, growing, shrinking, and bending. The delicacy of a frame, of delicate joints where the corners come together, of clean straight lines along the edges, cannot be accomplished with wood that has not reached its second death. The wood must be dried, cured, until there is no life left.”
Isabelle wondered if the same was true for the old woman. If the ceasing of her beating heart was only a first death. If there was a second death, one that could not come until the memory of her had faded, until the impact of her soul upon others, upon herself, was little more than a story, rather than the presence she still felt coursing through her.
“And yet,” the carpenter replied, “the wood we use today has a second life in the new creation. It lived as a tree. It takes time to shed what was left of its life after being severed from its roots, but in its new life as a frame may be admired for many generations. Like your paintings.”
Isabelle wondered how long a soul might be admired. Even a memory, she supposed, fades over time. She might come back and see her painting some twenty years hence, remember her time with the old woman, their talks, their joy, but the memory will have faded. The presence she felt today, the lingering presence of the old woman’s soul, would never again grow. It was only a question of how long the second death would take.
“It is how I feel about my late wife,” said the carpenter. “It has been twelve years since I lost her, and I remember her well. But there are days, the number of which grow every year, when I do not think of her. Days when her presence, or, perhaps, the memory of her presence, no longer guides me. I have not forgotten her. I will never forget her. Yet, the part of me that her essence took up gets a little smaller with each passing day.”
Isabelle sat on the carpenter’s bench and wept.
He comforted her.
After some time, she said, “You are right. Although I like the idea that the frame that will embrace her forever would share a death with her, the ugliness would sour her memory. Use the wood you think best. When it is done, please keep the painting as payment for your services. I fear that if I put it in her home, some new owner will take it down, and it may be lost forever. Unlike my other paintings, I would like this one to be preserved, though I little care where.
The carpenter thanked her for the gesture. He too was fond of the old woman, a distant relative, and would honor her memory with care and thoughtful work.
After the old woman had been buried and Isabelle Trubella had once more continued her journey, she found herself painting the dead and dying for some time. Decaying fruit, dried leaves, a lost and frozen squirrel, the splatter of a bug upon a tenement wall. Hospice patients and nursing homes. For a year she mourned through her brush.
Like the carpenter, over time, she found herself mourning less, and her paintings turning back to life. For the world is death and life, always together, and one cannot paint the world without painting both.
Isabelle Trubella Becomes Ill
Though Isabelle Trubella had experienced many illnesses over her lifetime, none of them had been serious. At times she would suffer from a common cold, live through days of nausea and discomfort, feel miserable as some flower came into bloom and kept her nose with such small passage that she was forced to breathe with her mouth. Yet, debilitating illness eluded her.
When serious illness took her, then, when she was unable to rise from her bed for weeks, when she was moved to the hospital for fear she would not wake, it was a new experience for her. She had often met and painted the sick and dying, but she had never been one herself. Now her life was pain. She had not the strength to rise and paint, nor had she the care. She wanted only for the pain to cease.
“I shall never paint again,” she told her nurse.
And the nurse gave her medicine.
“My task shall never be completed,” she told her nurse.
And the nurse wiped her brow.
“I have wasted my life.”
And the nurse told her to hush as she helped Isabelle with her exercises.
“I have spent my life painting the world. No. I have spent my life attempting to paint the world. I have barely begun my task and already I have lost. I am dying, as all people do. And I have missed my chance. It is true I made an attempt, I saw many things, met many folk, and painted wherever I went. Yet, now that my life is over, now that I shall never paint again, what is there to show for it? A few portraits hung upon walls? Painted walls and floors that will be painted over before I am properly buried, or washed away by wind and dust with my memory?”
And again, Isabelle Trubella turned her face to her nurse, a motion that took great effort and brought with it significant pain. She again said, “I have wasted my life.”
The nurse held Isabelle Trubella’s hand. He told her she was not going to die. He told her he had seen patient’s worse than she. He told her the doctor had great hope. He told her to think of what she had done, rather than what she had not. He told her few people begin great tasks, and even fewer continue them. He told her to look back upon her life and smile at the memory. He told her to imagine a life where she might paint again. Where she might once again live in the present.
“After I am gone,” Isabelle Trubella told the nurse, “I shall be forgotten. And what is a forgotten life if not wasted?”
He told her that a life lived in the present is not wasted.
“Even if your paintings are all washed to the sea, if everything you ever did is forgotten, as it no doubt will be, your life has value. You made some smile, some cry, some shudder in fear at seeing their world presented to them. You changed them. And that change lived on as they went about their lives, impacting others. And the others were changed, because every person we meet changes us, every experience, every interaction. This moment, this conversation has changed me, for example, and when I go home to my son, that change will seep between us. I may not speak of this day, but he will sense the change, be affected, carry that with him to his friends, his teachers, perhaps into adulthood. If a butterfly flapping her wings can lead to cyclones around the world, surely even the smallest moment between humans must have meaning.”
Isabelle Trubella winced with the pain responding caused her, as she asked the nurse the value of great tasks if even the smallest of moments have equal value.
“It is true that painting the world may have no more impact than not painting the world. Of that, I cannot say. Yet, knowing the world, observing the world, dedicating your life to better understanding the world, these are the great tasks of mankind.”
“Of humankind.”
“Very well. Of humankind. You have spent your life trying to understand the world by painting it. That is the greatest journey of all. Whether your name or paintings survive, whether you are remembered by people you never met matters little. Surely, you must have learned as much along your journey.”
Isabelle Trubella admitted that she had. She replied merely that the pain overshadowed everything. That the fear of death made everything she had learned feel unimportant.
“True, true,” said the nurse. “Pain overshadows everything.”
And Isabelle Trubella cried.
It took weeks for the pain to subside. As she recovered, she slowly returned to painting. She visited various wards of the hospital and painted the recovering. She painted the light on the other side of pain. She painted the calm that follows the loss of fear. She painted people who were almost done being patients. People who were ready to be people again.
She painted hope.
Isabelle Trubella Meets a Priest
Isabelle Trubella painted a church. At first, the steps of the church were empty, but before she had completed the painting, a priest came onto the steps, perhaps to revere a day full of promise. The painting not yet complete, Isabelle added the priest to the image she was painting upon a broken tile. The priest looked at her with curiosity but did not speak. When she finished, if any painting can be finished, she carefully placed the tile on the steps and sat beside the still standing priest.
“You are a stranger to our village,” the priest began, looking down to the seated artist.
“I am a traveler.”
“And what brings you to travel to our obscure little home?”
“I am painting the world.”
“Ahh…” replied the priest, who thoughtfully sat down upon the steps, the painted tile between them.
For some time, the two sat, side by side, staring off into the quiet morning. The priest thought about painting the world, an idea wholly new to him. He found solace in the reverence one must have to attempt such a thing, but bothered by the hubris that must, in his thoughts, accompany such a daring quest. After some time, he spoke his thoughts.
“I suppose,” Isabelle replied, “I was somewhat arrogant in my youth to think I could paint the world. I had little idea how daunting the prospect was. I simply desired to try, and began. Hubris is, I suppose, the blessing and curse of youth. Over the course of my journey, however, I have learned humility. When I began, I believed a time would come when I would have painted the world. Today, I simply desire to paint it.”
“To paint all of it?”
“To paint what I see.”
“And what of what is hidden?”
“Yes. It is true that much is hidden. In my youth I cursed the ants for creating a home I could neither see nor paint unless I were to imagine it. It is the same for the creatures of the sea. There is much that is hidden. I have, at times, painted what I dreamed such places to look like, but that is not the same as painting the world.”
“And what of the other hidden things?”
“The other hidden things?”
“Love. Faith. God. Do you paint what you imagine those to be?”
Isabelle Trubella sat in silence for some time before responding. She thought of her journey, of her adventures, of the people she had met, the places she had seen, and, of course, her paintings. When she spoke, it was of sadness. Of happiness. Of fear and anger and joy and bliss and lust and envy and reverence and care. Of love and faith.
“I have painted these things because these things are in the world. It is difficult to paint what I cannot see, but these things shine. When I see them in others, I see them in the eyes, in the way people carry themselves, in smiles and frowns, in confidence and droops. When they feel these things, they come out in my paintings in other ways. In bright or drab colors, in clear or obscured lines. Feelings always show in paintings.”
“And God?”
Isabelle smiled and spoke of her time upon the sea. She told the story of a day shortly after finding her sea legs, of coming on the deck to see her third or fourth sea. She spoke of seeing something beyond herself, of something greater than herself. Something humbling and terrifying and glorious in the same breath. She painted that sea upon the deck of the ship, dared to give her vision form. Each day after, as she walked upon the deck, she considered it. There were days when it made her smile and days when it made her cower in fear. And as the painting faded, so too did her vision. By the time the ship came into harbor, it was too faded to be seen. It was, she believed, her greatest painting.
“This painting of God?”
“I dare not say,” Isabelle replied. “But whatever it was I painted, it was more than the sea.”
Isabelle Trubella Helps the Poor
Isabelle Trubella was welcomed into the home of a destitute woman. The home was little more than a few pieces of tin and plywood, surrounded by other homes of a similar nature. The people in this crowded village of shanties worked hard with little to show for it. They planned their day around what small support they received from their masters, such as daily water allotments, and accepted their lot as unlikely to grow their fortunes.
Isabelle painted the inhabitants of this so-called slum. She painted their homes, their meals, their gossip. She painted happy children unaware of how little they had. She painted sad adults, broken hearted at their lots. She painted angry young men and ambitious young women. She painted the dogs they fed even as they could hardly feed themselves, and the dogs they did not.
These villagers, for they were no less, welcomed her into their neighborhood. They fed her, even though she had nothing to give beyond her paintings. They found her fresh paint when her supplies ran low. They even gave her a roll of canvas, though she was told never to ask where it had come from.
She asked her hostess, the young woman who had taken Isabelle into her home, why she and the other villagers wasted their money on her. Why they fed her, gave her supplies, when they had hardly enough to feed themselves. She said she had travelled the world, and never seen as much generosity from a people. How could it be, she asked, that these people, people with almost nothing, could give so much to someone of such little value.
“But you do have value, Izzy. A value they have rarely seen. Those people up there, the ones in the towers, the ones with money and servants, they surround themselves with art. They attend the opera and the ballet, make museums of their homes, spend their leisure reading literature and poetry. They have never known a world without art.
“These people, our friends, cannot afford such luxuries. They sing and dance, tell stories, just as all people do. And yet, they have little opportunity for more. You have brought art to their doors. You have shown them their own lives in ways they have not seen. You are like young Calfuray, the poet.”
“There is a poet among you?”
“There was. Though his memory be a blessing, his words have left this earth along with his body. He never wrote them down. He knew not how to write, and in his shame, refused to let others do to his work what he could not. Yet, while he lived, he showed us a view of our lives we could not see without him. He used his art to express something we knew but could not say. He was welcomed into homes much like you. His art became his value. So too does yours. Perhaps more so, as you leave something behind you.”
“But some of these people,” Isabelle said, “have hardly enough to eat. Surely art cannot be more important than food.”
“Well,” her friend replied thoughtfully, “I suppose art is food.”
“And when I am gone?”
“When you are gone, we shall remember the meals we shared with you, and smile upon our blessing.”
Isabelle Trubella Goes Home to Rest
As an old woman, there came a time when Isabelle Trubella could no longer live a life upon the road. Each day, the distance she could walk grew less, while the pain in her joints grew more. She found herself falling asleep, even as she painted, from the weariness that grew with each day. Life on the road is a hard life, a life for the young, for the strong. As the youth of her body left her, the inertia of old habits was no longer enough. She was tired, and she needed rest.
Such is the fate that awaits us all.
With what little money she had saved from the occasional sales of her work, she rented a cottage by the sea. She reminisced with herself about her time upon the water, and, on her better days, painted the sea through her window, changing with the weather, but never with the view.
A young doctor from the nearest house came by to check upon her from time to time. He was a busy man, but he made time for this strange old lady who spoke of painting the world.
“I have failed,” she told him late one evening, as the waves crashed upon the shore with the waning storm. “I did the best I could, but it was not enough. I set out to paint the world. Each day I painted, I felt as if I was making progress. That as long as I kept painting, someday, perhaps, I would complete my task. It sounds silly to say of such a seemingly impossible task, and yet there were days, many, when I believed it.
“There was never hope, of course. Before I left my home, before I even began my travels, I knew I could never paint it all. From the moment I watched the ants crawl into their hidden home, I knew I could never truly paint the world, for so much of the world was obscured. Yet, I knew I could continue to paint. To paint what was before me, what I could see.
“Perhaps if I had set out to paint what I could see, I could now say I had accomplished my goal. Yet, what sort of goal is that? What cares anyone for what I can see? It was not to paint what I could see that drove me, but rather to paint the world.”
And, recalling her illness, the dance with death that had ended with a hope now faded, said once again, “I have wasted my life.”
The doctor listened to her sad tale without interruption. When she had finished, he told her how much he liked her painting of the sea, the one she gave him when they first met, the one that he hung above his mantle. He said he often sat upon the shore and watched the sea, had done so from his childhood days, but that the painting was something different.
“It is not that I wish to watch the sea after dark, or in the rain, and that your painting allows me to do that from the comfort of my home. When I want to watch the sea after dark, I sit upon the shore and look out into the darkness, listen to the waves, see with my ears. I have sat upon the shore in great storms and all-day drizzles. I fear not the weather, for I am never far from home. This is not what your painting does for me.
“For, your painting, the one of the sea, the one you gave to me that sits upon my mantle, the one I call Descant, is not of the sea, but of a moment. The world changes, and no part faster than the sea. If we are lucky, we can recall some moments, some visions, memories to stay with us, to compare with the new moments, the ones that come after. Descant is a moment, a piece of your life, and my life as well, for I was there that day, watching the sea. Your painting is not exactly as I remember it, as I saw it, but rather as you saw it. You have painted a moment, and I have lived in that moment many times since. I am grateful both for the painting and for the moment.”
Isabelle told him of a sailor that had said as much.
“That sailor was wise. Without your painting, the moment might well be gone, as so many other moments are. I do not regret the loss of the moments of my life, but that does not mean I am ungrateful for the few that stay with me. I have thanked you for the painting before, but today I thank you for the memory. For the moment. For capturing something ephemeral that can keep me company in my lonely hours.”
Isabelle Trubella wondered if it was for posterity that she painted. To capture moments for others, that they might remember both the moments and also her. That she might live through her paintings, be remembered after she was gone. If she had painted simply as a way to live on beyond her death.
The doctor sighed.
“It may be true, my aged friend, that you painted out of selfishness. That you dedicated your life to painting the world only to be remembered, to be famous. I think, however, such a thing is unlikely. For there are better ways to be remembered than to leave paintings upon rocks that will be washed away by the spring rains. There are better ways to be remembered than to leave unsigned canvases in piles by roadsides because they are too cumbersome to carry. There are better ways to be remembered than to pass through towns without staying to build a home.
“And it may be true that you will be remembered. Or that some of your paintings may survive you by many years. And it may be that, like the rest of us, you will be forgotten. Of the future, I know as little as you. I think you painted the world to help you see it, rather than capture it. Only you can say why you have spent your life as you have, but I like to think you painted for yourself, rather than posterity.”
Isabelle Trubella sighed in return as she let her head go back, the desire for an afternoon nap growing behind her eyes. When she caught herself waking, the doctor was still there, looking through her window to the sea.
“Why do you call my painting Descant?”
“Because, dear Isabelle, each time I look at it, I see something more.”
Isabelle Trubella Paints Her Own Death
Not long after that, in her cottage by the sea, Isabelle Trubella did something she had never before attempted. A lifetime after she had set out to paint the world, after travelling to uncountable places, leaving paintings with strangers, upon roads, buildings, and garbage, making new friends and leaving them behind, after painting landscapes and portraits and still lives with the tiniest of details, after painting skies and seas and barren deserts, she found the strength for one last painting. One of herself.
She knew what she looked like, of course. She had often seen herself in the glass. She knew of great painters that had stood before mirrors to capture themselves in proper detail, to study themselves as they had studied others. She considered such an approach to her first, and likely her last, self-portrait.
Instead, she painted herself from memory.
She painted her breathing, now slower and more troubled than before. She painted the water that fell from her eyes as weariness took her over. She painted the tickle of her dry gray hair upon her neck.
And she painted her heart, doing its best for a few more beats before giving up at last.
When the young doctor found her on his morning visit, he sat beside her and wept. He then went about the business that any doctor must upon finding a dead body. After a busy morning making arrangements, he sat down to rest and considered the new painting.
If it was of a person, it was not obvious. Almost avant-garde in its style, it evoked rather than told. Not a story, but an impression, a feeling. It had joy and fear, strength and frailty, envy, shame, bliss, reverence, and love. It had blends of dark and light that fought each other even as they communed in peace. It was a wild mass of strokes unlike anything the artist had ever created.
There was something else about it, something about it that reminded him of a person, of Isabelle Trubella, she who would paint the world.
It was buried with the body upon which it was painted.