Indecision froze his hand, the needle hanging but an inch above the grooved spinning surface. Soft sounds of her brushstrokes whispered in the silent studio. His mind danced between the two privileges before him. This was, after all, exactly what he had sought after. A complex nonverbal conversation with his daughter, spoken in art, and unintentional sounds. Her brushstrokes sentences, the changing rhythm of her breath quiet affirmations, the taps of the brush's handle on her glass of turpentine solvent phatic responses, her works vulnerable soliloquies. Yet his own block of needing music as vehicle to create art himself, held him back from indulging in the full depth of their discussion. To speak to her, he'd need to paint as well, which required music. In doing so he would miss some of her soft idiosyncrasies, a pricey sacrifice for the father.
It was decided, his creature comforts could wait, and he adjusted the turntable's arm back to its resting place. Allured by the possibility that in the quiet Emmanuella might lose herself to the moment, and he'd have a chance to record her joyful sounds. Perhaps, if he was lucky, even an involuntary song. Able adored the tones of his daughter's voice. In the rare moments of artistic flow she would hum the most unusual, and beautiful melodies to herself. Whenever he was fortunate enough to hear one, he would do his best to record it. His steps continued past their back to back easels, to a shelf of equipment across the room, and retrieved a small hand recorder.
Over their sessions together he had accumulated a large collection of sampled sounds on his hard drive, which he utilised when creating music of his own. Stretching, looping, layering, soaking in reverb, using them to shade his songs with subtle colour. A secret depth. While the device loaded, he slipped a pair of large bulky headphones over his ears, relishing their pillowy embrace. The sound of the room washed over him as Able placed the device beside her easel, and balanced the microphone's sensitivity. Emmanuella understood as much of what her father was doing, and his invisible art as one could for her age and physical limitations. She understood the vibrations and her father's proclivity towards music. She certainly understood art. She delighted watching the colours of the lights dance off his mixing board, and the look in his eye when he'd pointed from them to her, and signed that it was her sounds making the lights flash.
The difference between Emmanuella's big hazelnut eyes from his wife's and his was dramatic. They never ceased to remind him of being in the thick of the old growth forests he'd grown up running through. It wasn't so much the colour, though the colours were close, but the ambience and depth. The familiar feeling of some deeper ancient interconnectedness, and wisdom. That sense had struck him like a bolt of love the moment he'd met his daughter in that bleak orphanage.
Within Able, Emmanuella inspired profound feelings that often overwhelmed him. As much as other people seemed to struggle with conceiving it, the unconditional love he felt for his adopted (though he and his wife Magema were loath to refer to her as that) child had been a given, and the easiest for him to grasp. There was no shortage of love, it was the rest that he struggled to grapple with. Sorrow, and irrational guilt, carried from the circumstances of Emmanuella's life before she'd joined the family was a major one, often sending his thoughts spiralling to sorrowful places. Her hearing impairment, and a projected sadness for her loss was another. The hardest to wrap his mind around with Emmanuella, was the shame and frustration he felt for how slow he was learning sign language. His wife's effortless and flourishing command of ASL didn't help in the slightest. Feelings of inadequacy were like a weighted vest. But his determination to communicate with little Emmanuella never faltered.
Pen and paper had seemed like a promising life line. But the hope that that was the solution for a viable means of communication between the two lived for about as long as the sentences the four year old could write. When the well of known words ran dry, the playful doodling began.
Though limited, there was something special about Able's initial intuition. An epiphany struck in a flash, while listening to Vespertine by Bjork during a rare afternoon alone. Suspended half way between a nap and day dream, nestled in the family's hammock, his mind mused as he watched light dance in the dark of his eyelids. Able reflected on an old interview between Pharrell Williams and some younger musicians where they spoke of synesthesia. Synesthesia. Seeing music as colours. Hendrix had had it. He wondered if the opposite could be true. If in the absence of sound, his daughter could hear music from the colours, and patterns she saw.
Able sat with the thought long after the album finished. What could that mean? They were strange, difficult, philosophical conversations to approach anyone with, much less a child. And yet, it was Emmanuella's childish wonder that made the abstract prepositions more welcoming. What does this sound like to you? What do you think this sounds like? What does the sky sound like? What does the bird sound like? What does laughter sound like? What noises do flowers make? What does your reflection off a puddle of spilt gasoline sound like? What does their dog Rosie sound like when she chases a ball? What colours do these sound like? He explained that in art there were no wrong answers, that there was beauty in ambiguity. An introduction to abstract artists and paintings followed. Able did his best to explain the feelings that were gifted to us from Jackson Pollock, Agnes Martin, and Kandin by breaking boundaries, being honest and vulnerable. He told her that some of the greatest musicians wrote in colours that they heard. Able spoke of the fun they could have with flinging paint. And so they played, all the children, painting abstracts, feeling the purples, and pinks in their fingers, smearing the oranges across canvases.
And it was fun.
As the sticky acrylics splatter across the canvas he'd sign to her, hoping to guide deeper thoughts. Something is missing when it's just fun isn't it? What do you think? His hands asked the questions, her brushes answered.
What made Grandma's cooking different from the restaurants? His cooking? Her mothers cooking?
Intention. Love. Feeling. We balance our heads with our hearts to create art. As the caps of the acrylics pulled off, her tap turned on and the paintings flowed. Warmth from the conversation hung in the air, the connection so pleasant, so pure, it bordered on being uncomfortable. Even with the understanding, even standing right beside her, he longed to say more, to express all the feelings he felt. Feelings that are beyond the boundaries of language. He had faith that she knew, he could see it in her smile, feel it when they embraced, hear it in her paintings, but he still struggled, internally, to accept it. So he learned to listen for her words, in every brushstroke, every well timed tap of her foot, and the echoes framed against the wall.
As the minutes rolled, the microphone recorded nothing but the quiet of silence. Able raised his drooping eyelids, surfaced from his memories and stared at the infinite blank of his canvas. With a deep breath he contrasted his gaze against the black behind his eyes. What a curious thing, these obstacles they had in communication with one and other. 'It would always be something,' he thought, 'even with all our senses, and technology to aid us, one way or another there always seems to be hurdles in understanding each other.' He let out a long surrendering sigh, why fight it? It was no use, he needed music to create, and reached over switching the microphone off. A few quick steps back to the turntable, a click of a button, and the warm hum of the hi-fi washed the room in dawning yellows.
The needle gave a satisfying catch as it ran across the vinyl, thick, shaking, bass notes pulsated across the walls reflecting timely back to the first snare of a boom-bap beat. Able's head nodded in time to the drums as the music hit, and turned to see Emmanuella spying from behind her canvas. She raised her eyebrows and motioned for her father to increase the volume. Happy to oblige, Able spun the dial, and with a smile and a wink, he sauntered to his easel.
Despite being deaf Emmanuella loved hip-hop. With the volume high enough she could feel the drums, and percussive rhythm of the rhymes dancing over them. Even if she could speak to him, he was convinced neither could describe what she found, or felt. Intangible feelings in different frequencies, that surpassed the shackled limitations of language.
With the motions of the music the decision to coat his canvas with a base layer of lavender had come easy. Emmanuella peeked around her canvas and smiled at him as she bopped her head to the unheard beat while he let his paint dry. She knew he was creating. She knew of his struggles with silence. The anxiety he felt in quiet, the irony of their situation. And yet there they were, bonded in love. A father despite blood. Family despite fear.
With a deep breath, he pulled out a tube of golden paint, globbed it upon his palette, paused, then smeared it across the centre of his canvas. Gold in the centre, the same as his daughter. Dry enough now so the paints wouldn't blend, he closed his eyes, and slathered a pastel pink over the gold with generous strokes, feeling rather than thinking. Guided by her presence vibrating with the beat. He looked over his canvas and knew she felt it too. From his brush brilliant blues wept in streaks, within, his flush heart swelled, the depth of love deepened from a silent conversation he could never imagine improving.
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