The Island: Canvas Of My Mind

I call it The Island. On the surface it’s a beautiful scene. There are tall, shady trees and glistening crystal waves. There is sand, the finest in the world, the kind that falls through your fingers with weightless ease. The sky is never smudged by the grey hue of clouds, but remains a joyous blue.

That is The Island. It doesn’t exist of course. It is a construct. It is a product of compartmentalization. That is a big word which simply means the art of blocking out life’s many troubles. Blocking it out is only the first step for me. What comes next is a wonderful work of creativity.

In glorious delusion I pick up my brush and lay it to the canvas of my mind. My thoughts as the paint, my emotion as the inspiration. I move the brush in the direction of my sorrow and loneliness, my anxiety and hurt. Soon, my hands stop the motion and my heart takes control. Spiraling, weaving, tracing, heaving, the brush moves in rapid expression. The scene unfolds in explicit detail and reality is covered up below the deceptive medium. Ah, yes, reality. The brush falls to the ground…

All good things must come to an end, I suppose. I step back and view the spectacle for the first time. In the process of creation I had closed my eyes. Now I say a splendid scene. A tropical travesty with sparkling tides and spreading trees overhead. Sand whose grains are near microscopic and a sky whose color remains the same. It is The Island.

However I cannot go there now. The ship called Reality has returned to take me home. Some home this is. Yet I will return to revisit this reimagined region, and will again construct those shady shores in remembrance of their healing power. After all, it is not so much dwelling on The Island which gives me rest. No, it is in the act of creation that the peace comes. But the serenity is only so for a time, and never lasts long. So I will wait. I will travel the oceans, heading nowhere, seeing nothing. But along the way I will find my brush again, and touch is once more to the canvas of my mind.