The girl on page VII.01

• The Castaway's Wife

Mixed Media - Acrylic, gouache, and watercolor 42x59.4cm

 

She was the youngest of six sisters, as delicate as a poppy and as sensitive as the sting of a nettle on an ankle. She was soft in her ways, as clean and simple as a sheet laid out in a meadow, but she understood that her beloved's absence was a strong armor behind which to protect herself. Her weakness was her strength; her emptiness filled her for the first time. He cared for her as one tends to an animal, and she was accustomed to being given everything in exchange for a brief display of her beauty. He kept her alive, and his absence awakened her like someone discovering a new passion. She discovered what it feels like to make a decision; she discovered the meaning of responsibility and of making her own mistakes with their own consequences. At last, the absence turned her into an adult woman.