The same worn wooden table. The same lamp. The same knife haphazardly left on the edge. Objects resting exactly where a painter once paused her gaze before lifting a brush. One could almost feel her there still, sleeves rolled, daylight slipping across the floor, paint thick beneath her fingernails while swallows circled outside the open door singing spring.
She painted what was before her- one meal over, and another to prepare- nourishing others, nourishing herself.
Then walked towards other day, leaving the scene, placing the painting on the cupboard to dry.
Yet there I stood, looking at present inside past.
A woman holding breath before an onion, a bowl, fruit, coffee grinder…
Ordinary things in ordinary time-
Who sat hungry beside the café au lait bowl while afternoon bells drifted across the village?
The painting leaned against the fence at the brocante though waiting for someone willing to enter its doorway again. And for one suspended moment, life answered itself through the faded oil paint, and the tenderness of forgotten objects remaining faithful today as of yesterday.
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