Shadow and Light

The use of shadow and light to produce contrast, Chiaroscuro, finds it's origins in Renaissance drawings but can also be traced back further to illuminated manuscripts and probably further back then that.  Manipulating the contrast between light and dark can actually be a very powerful tool not only in art but in life.  I use it, albeit with gradations of three different colors, in my garden to produce contrast that draws the eye to a particular focal point.   I also use that contrast of three colors to create unity in the garden as mine is broken up into many smaller areas spread over four different terraces.  A good test of this principle is to place a burgundy plant behind a charteuse one.  The contrast in color makes the burgundy disappear and the chartreuse stand out.  These are two of the three main colors I happen use in my garden, the other being a mid range green.  

It's interesting to me that the principles of Chiaroscuro can create a distinct feeling of unity as well as contrast.   But this is not just another bit of art history lore or a course in garden design. Chiaroscuro, for lack of a better term, describes my life.

I have two distinct parts to me.  One exists in the light while the other exists in the shadow.  For many years I didn't even know that the shadow part existed; but it did.  I also didn't know that it was a powerful hidden force buried deep in my psyche, controlling me and my every move.  And the motion that resulted was running.  I ran constantly.  It didn't matter where or when.  I just ran.  From April of 1976 to the fall of 1979 when I moved into the City I never lived in any one place for more that about four months.  I remember how potent the call of the road was for me.  One day in particular is burned into my memory.  I had just got off the midnight shift and was pulling out of the restaurant's parking lot just off the Interstate in southeastern Wisconsin.  I had a choice. Go back to the apartment or hit the road.  It took all that I could muster to turn the wheel of my car towards my apartment.  Soon after, I found the excuse I needed to hit the road.  A few weeks after that morning, I came back to my shared apartment to find my lover in bed with another man.  By 2p that day I was already well into Iowa.  I ended going back though.  Why don't not know.  We split up soon after that and I was on the road again, for real this time.  Bouncing between states in the lower 48 like a superball that was thrown against a wall in a very large room.  Constantly on the move, ricochetting all over the place with a force that defied logic.  (BTW, for all you who don't know what a superball is, check it out on Wikipedia.  Shit, I just realized part of my childhood is now a reference point in an online encyclopedia.  Goddess, do I feel old now.  BRB, got to check the mirror to see if I have just turned 103.) 

Sorry, drifting.  

Anyways, Chiaroscuro and Me.  Wow, that would make a great movie title. 

Sorry, drifting again.  

There is a point to all of this, really.  Now if I could just remember what it is.

Ah; yes; running, ricochetting, moving every four months.  Got it.

Chiaroscuro became a way of life for me from early on.  Shadow and light, pulling, pushing, driving me to the brink of insanity.  The thing I had been running from not that I had realized it yet, was actually me, or to be more precise, the legacy of my insane childhood.  So with the help of a really good therapist, I stopped.  From shear exhaustion I suppose too. But I did stop.  Long enough to see the insanity of my life, my relationship at the time, and my driving need to be in perpetual motion.  By the Fall of 2004 my shadow came out into the light.  And it has been showing itself every since.  

Coming to terms with my childhood hasn't been easy by any stretch of the imagination.  It has been profoundly grueling and intensely painful.  But I did it and continue to do it with every breath I take.  In hindsight, I still do not understand why I decided to stop, not really.  It wasn't just the influence of my therapist.  It also wasn't just me waking up one day saying; oh gee, too tired, don't feel like running anymore, time to stop.  I suppose, if I had to hazard a guess, the change was probably the result of a convergence of many spoken and unspoken things; things that came together with the deep realization that it had finally become more painful for me to run than it would be for me to stop.  But this is only a guess. 

The Chiaroscuro is still there for the most part, pushing and pulling, influencing my daily life.  I don't think that will ever stop.  And I not sure I want it to anyways because I feel I have a lot more to learn about me, about life, and most importantly, about my legacy.