This post is part of my series, Courting the Muse. Subscribers to my email list receive a weekly prompt focusing on one aspect of creativity.

This week’s prompt: What’s your story?

Part 1: The Setup

Once upon a time my parents did what many New Yorkers do when they retire–they beat feet to Florida. Land of excess heat, excess humidity and grasshoppers the size of roadkill.

I did not do well with any of those things except maybe my parents. And even then there were exceptions. So the kids and I would go off exploring to give Grandpa some peace.

This is where the cow comes in. A dead cow to be more accurate.

We (meaning my kids) noticed it in a pasture along one of the back roads we regularly drove to get to a little beach along the Gulf of Mexico, currently known as the Gulf of Space X Debris. A beach where we witnessed salty Baptisms and ‘gator alerts, often in the same day.

On the way home we’d stop for root beer floats because. it was stinkin’ hot and y’know–ROOT BEER! Firstborn was over the moon because he was having a beer (I should have seen that as a sign of things to come) and Baby Girl was happy to drench her sweaty beach clothes and the carseat in sweet sticky spillage.

Anyway, we’d be driving this road back and forth killing boredom with the old family game of ‘Cows & Cemeteries’, a game conjured up by one of my sisters during childhood roadtrips to my uncle’s farm. The rules are pretty basic: someone spots cows and shouts ‘COWS!’ with a quick and no way accurate headcount 1,2,3,8, 300! And then someone else spots a cemetery and shouts ‘CEMETERY!’ and all the other person’s cows are dead. Poof, just like that!

Whoever had cows left standing at the end of the game (which happened when someone broke down in tears because they luuuuved their moo cows SO MUCH and now they’re DEAD, or we reached the farm–whichever came first, was declared the winner–which also resulted in more tears because there was no such thing as sportsmanship on our family roadtrips. And there was nothing to win anyway.

Part 2:

So now you understand why my kids were on the lookout for cows on our trips to the beach. First day they noticed one was down. Looked dead to me. which really wasn’t fair because no one spotted a cemetery. Second day it was still down which is only logical because it sure as shit wasn’t going anywhere, except maybe to bovine heaven. At this point I lose track of how long this scene played out. Was it the hours between coming and going to the beach? Was it days?

All I recall is how she puffed up like a balloon and maybe, if the air wasn’t so dense and heavy with humidity she would have floated off into the sunset like a giant party favor.

In a perfect world that would’ve happened.

Instead, she exploded like a Pinata and now, just like Cows & Cemeteries, this story is part of our family lore.

And I’m telling you this because…?

Part 3: The Power of Story

Our whole life is about story. The story we tell ourselves, the stories we tell others. About ourselves, our circumstances, our history.

Do you know why I paint in layers? Because the paintings are so much richer when they have history. There’s story in the textures, the earlier colors peeking through.

I don’t tell the story, it’s for the viewer to find their own.

That’s the beauty of abstracts.

When I’m faced with a blank canvas, the first thing I do is make all sorts of random marks. I need to put some story on it. I may not know what the story is but the marks and layers will eventually tell me where to take the painting the painting is taking me.

Because at this point I’m just along for the ride.

This week I’m sharing a detail of a painting I did years ago, a portrait of my daughter based on the story you just read. I snapped a photo of her when we came back from the beach, using it as reference for the painting later on. Just looking at this painting brings back memories of that day. I can smell the salt water and sunscreen, feel her warm sticky fingers in my hand, remember how she claimed her grandma’s sun hat as her own. I can even feel the heat from her sunburn radiating off her skin.

I couldn’t think of a better painting to illustrate the point of this post.

So, what’s your story? What are the moments, big or small, that have embedded themselves into your personal lore? Maybe it’s a memory that keeps resurfacing, a weird roadside sighting, or a family tradition that makes no sense but somehow stuck.

Drop a comment and tell me about it! And if you’re staring down a blank canvas (literal or metaphorical), just start making marks. The story will find you. It always does.