Still Life

by Sarah Winman

The first rule of art. Looking into loving!

Life was unfolding at an extraordinary pace.

How many poems, how many declarations of love, how many promises to better one’s soul, has such a room elicited? Where beauty and gratitude go together. This is how we become enriched, Miss Skinner.

I have a need to stride out, Mr Lugg. To walk as a man might walk. With all the benefits. I do not need to be a woman here. I wish to repel the male gaze. To move through the city with the ease of a man. I want to view the city through the eyes of a man. A poet, you see, is a shape-shifter.

All artists are tortured by all they’re not and by art that’s not theirs. It’s lonely, Mr Collins.

The choice for the educated woman was clear and stark. Marriage and no creative expression. Or convent and creative expression. So, women entered the convent in order to paint. Such was the sacrifice. But when have women not sacrificed to live as they feel? Not all of us will embrace men, marriage, motherhood. Nor should we. We have one life, my dear Evelyn, one life and we must use it well.

So, time heals. Mostly. Sometimes carelessly. And in unsuspecting moments, the pain catches and reminds one of all that’s been missing. The fulcrum of what might have been. But then it passes. Winter moves into spring and swallows return. The proximity of new skin returns to the sheets. Beauty does what is required. Jobs fulfil and conversations inspire. Loneliness becomes a mere Sunday. Scattered clothes. Empty bowls. Rotting fruit. Passing time. But still life in all its beauty and complexity.