Or-
“COLORS IN THE
MOUNTAINS”
I first learned the power of words when I was four years old.
It was a lesson in marketing for wee-me.
When the preschool teacher sent the weekly crafts output
home, my mother rested her eyes on one colorful painting by her daughter, (me)
and gasped.
“What is that?” she said, looking at the unruly jumble of
stripes and spots.
I had no idea what I had intended to paint. After all, a few
days had passed since. But for some reason I felt compelled to say something.
“Colors in the Mountains,” I said. (צְבַעִים בְּהָרִים/ tsvaim
beharim in Hebrew.)
My mother gasped again. The evocative words enveloped her with
light.
She had this painting framed and hung it next to the dining
table. To anyone who asked she told, “Mirka made it when she was four and it’s
Colors in the Mountains.”
I heard her repeat these words many times before I left home
at eighteen. I felt a tinge of regret every time because I knew the truth.
The truth was that I had tried repeatedly to paint people,
objects, or places, and my hand didn’t yet have the proper control to
execute my intent. All my paintings at that age were nonsensical blotches of
colors because I couldn’t paint what I wanted to.
But, boy, I sure could label.
I don’t know what I intended for that particular lauded painting but “colors in the mountains” wasn’t it. Not even close.
And I knew
it.
The painting and the apartment I grew up in are long gone.
What I was left with was the sense that if you use the right words, you can “sell”
anything. Just make sure the naked truth doesn’t seep into your descriptions and you, too, might have your work framed and gawked over.
This isn’t my “Colors in the Mountains,” but as close as I can find to make my point:
