SOPHIA SMITHWICK
Country NSW / Artist
Self isolating illustrator β pre and post quar
I am who I am.
π
She came to me as we sat in a sun filled courtyard, on poorly painted garden chairs; pressed up against the bark of an old weeping willow. We pieced together the rest of the chairs, into an ill fitting square. Waiting for the parents of the child to roll in ~ She was in an interview with them, about her student, their child.
The parents of an small girl unbeknownst to me sat down. They carried on briefly with some small novelty conversation to start off and then allowed them selves permission to carry on. Persecuting; the teacher, in which I seemed to be supporting. I stood like a guardian and alternating from standing statuesque behind her like an immortal figure, of Mother Mary. To sitting beside her, a mere mortal, a past friend even, stroking the teachers hand in comfort. As the parents of this mystery child began to berate the young educator, she coiled slowly into my lap. Sobbing, weeping with discontent; perhaps of her chosen profession. It felt as if the wrath being slung at her, were penetrating her deeper than beyond a soul level.
The parents relentlessly shouting until ~ they further sat there. Their deafening silence contrasting - echoing thick into the room, highlighting the reverberating obscenities just spoken. *The silence is a marker from when they lost steam.*
The teacher continued to weep into my lap, face buried, eyes soaking my sundress. Collapsing with every bone left in her brittle and small fragile body. Like a spiral rinsing her of any control, she let go, she had no other choice but to allow her self to turn to dust.
I look down at her nails, curling into them selves. Even her cartilage chose to retract in towards them selves... away from the untoward violence of the people shooting words at her. Now. Sitting in silence.
(1/11/2020)
I stand admits eves dusk towering over an old broken farm house.
With bare feet being my only source of contact I squelch the verdant green land beneath me.
I breath in, strong until I hit my own diaphragm like Iβve never.
Looking before me, this house holds a window, glowing from the inside like a sunset against a cold teal sky.
I think about death, and how the trees are dying quicker than ever. I think of detritus, aware of my own thoughts I think of my self awake
I rise up: not far from the astral in a post dreamt out state:
Are we the worlds fallen debris?
Are we just moon food?
Are we earth junk, like boiled candies before bed..
Is my physical form just folly.
The soul remains, does it not?
Maybe we are much too macro ~ to ever matter. In such relative form.
What did we leave...
And what came before it left... am I going. Anywhere. Where
(11/9/2020)
At the bottom the ocean β darkness pervades me, royal blue specs of white coral floating, surrounds the orbit of my body β light hits from the sun shining high above directly into my eyes which seem to see quite well considering the depth in which I am.
I feel a rolling motion of water, a coiling movement beneath my lower back as I float in a stationary position looking upward toward a spectrum of light glaring down at me.
I feel a pressing to the skin, a dolphin. Itβs nose nuzzling, making contact. At first my stomach drops, but then I lighten. Dolphin continues to press forward and onwards, pushing my once static body upward to the shining sun. Liberated ~ I feel a surrendering to the moment and allow joy to rise. As I do, the oceanic darkness comes to a gradient working itβs way to the most pristine and aqua blue sparkling surface. My head births through to the very top of calm waters.
There standing on an isolated island made of peach and beige glossed marble is the man who is in charge of printing my art work along side my sister who is in a squatting position holding a single boiled egg.
I slide my way like seals do when they exit the sea to land to be with my younger sister.
We start to peel back the eggs shell delicately with our fingernails. We only reach the half way point until I am now awakened and pulled from the dream state into waking life.