Living between art and multiple sclerosis
The first marks on a canvas rarely come with a plan.
For me, they are a door.
Those first strokes and layers give creativity somewhere to enter, even when I don’t know where the painting will lead. A color may appear simply because I feel drawn to it. Sometimes a mark comes from an emotion I haven’t yet found the words to name.
More often than not, those beginning layers become a way of giving my emotions somewhere to go.
I’ve always thought that, just as paper can hold whatever we choose to write on it, a canvas can hold whatever we need to trace onto it.
A line. Maybe, a color. A mark made without thinking.
The canvas doesn’t ask me to explain any of it.
Sometimes, that’s exactly what I need.
One layer makes room for another
As a painting develops, those first marks rarely remain exactly as they were.
A layer might cover part of what came before. Another can soften a color, change the direction of a shape, or introduce something I couldn’t have imagined at the beginning.
What once seemed important may eventually become almost invisible.
I don’t see those layers as mistakes or things that needed to be erased,
They opened the way for what came next.
Every layer gives me something to respond to. It changes what I see and creates possibilities for the next decision. What was there before becomes part of what comes after, even when I can no longer see it clearly.
That’s one of the reasons I love most about working this way.
The painting remembers.
Nothing has to remain exactly as it was to have mattered.
What we can’t see still belongs
Beneath a finished painting, there may be layers that no one else will ever know existed.
A color can disappear beneath another. A shape may become hidden under texture. A mark made in one moment might eventually become nothing more than a subtle trace beneath everything that followed.
Someone looking at the finished painting may never know those layers were there.
I do.
They are still part of the work.
Our lives can be like that, too.
Some parts of our stories remain visible. They’re easy to talk about, easy to remember, perhaps even easy to celebrate.
Other layers are quieter.
They include the experiences we don’t often mention, the choices we wish had been different, the losses and disappointments that changed us, and the unexpected turns we didn’t understand while we are living through them.
From the outside, some of those layers may no longer be visible.
That doesn’t mean they stopped being part of us.
We are more than what can be seen
I sometimes wonder how differently we might look at ourselves if every layer that brought us to this moment could be seen.
Not the accomplishments nor the beautiful memories.
Everything.
The moments that made us laugh. The ones that broke our hearts. Times when we felt certain of ourselves along with the seasons when we had no idea what we were doing.
People who entered our lives.
People who left.
Versions of ourselves we once knew intimately and may barely recognize now.
Together those experiences create something that none of them could create alone.
They overlap; perhaps, they influence one another.
They help shape the woman standing here today.
None of this means that every experience was good.
Some things were unfair and, probably, hurt too much.
Some things we would never choose to experience again.
Giving those experiences a place in our story doesn’t require us to call them blessings or pretend they didn’t hurt.
Sometimes something was simply painful.
Even so, it became part of our story.
Your layers don’t make you less
We’re often taught to separate the parts of ourselves we like from the ones we wish had never existed.
Scars get hidden. Changes become something to apologize for. Past versions of ourselves become comparisons we use against the woman we are today.
It can be tempting to imagine that, if enough of the difficult layers could disappear, we might finally become the person we were supposed to be.
But what if there is nothing wrong with having layers?
What if they aren’t evidence of everything that went wrong?
What if they are evidence that we have lived?
The woman you are today didn’t appear all at once.
She was shaped gradually through every season, every choice, every relationship, every beginning and every ending.
Some layers are beautiful.
Others are difficult to look at.
A few may still be tender.
Together, they have given you a depth that could not have existed otherwise.
Your layers don’t make you less.
They make you more.
More history.
More depth.
More understanding.
More stories.
More you.
The Beauty of What Comes Next
When I return to a canvas, I don’t expect the next layer to erase everything underneath it. Instead, I build upon what is already there.
The previous layers give me something to work with. They create texture, movement, contrast, and possibility. Without them, I wouldn’t have the same surface from which to create what comes next.
Perhaps our lives deserve that same kind of patience. We don’t have to become someone entirely new every time life changes us.
Becoming can simply mean allowing another layer to form.
Sometimes something new emerges without requiring everything underneath it to disappear.
Maybe there comes a point when we can look at all the layers we carry and recognize that they have brought us here.
Not perfect.
Not untouched.
Not the same woman we were before.
But here.
A Moment to Look at Your Own Layers
If you could look at your life the way I look at a painting, what would you see?
Which layers are still visible?
Which ones have been covered by everything that came afterward?
What experiences changed the direction of your story?
Are there parts of yourself you’ve been treating as something that needs to be erased rather than something that belongs to your history?
You don’t have to answer all of those questions today.
Perhaps noticing them is enough.
Before we can create another layer, there are times when we need to make peace with the ones already beneath the surface.
That may be one of the gifts creativity can offer us:
A place where nothing has to be explained before it can exist.
A place where we can begin with a single mark.
A place where what comes next doesn’t have to erase what came before.
A Gentle Invitation
If this reflection made you think about the layers that have shaped your own story, I created something for you.
The Blooming Through Change Toolkit is a gentle creative space for reflection, creativity, and reconnecting with yourself. It was created to offer a moment to pause, listen inwardly, and explore the person you are becoming.
You can receive your free copy by joining my email community.
Your story doesn’t need to be stripped down to its simplest version to be worthy of being seen.
Every layer belongs.
And so do you.
From the Studio Journal
Lately, I’ve been thinking about how much of a painting exists beneath what we can actually see.
Perhaps we are like that, too.
There is so much more beneath the surface than anyone else could ever know.
