The Sun

I painted The Sun on a day I did not feel sunny. That is usually how it goes — the card arrives when you need it, not when you have earned it.

The face is deliberately unbothered. Heavy lids, flushed cheeks, a mouth that has not decided whether to smile. This is not the blazing, triumphant sun of the old decks; this is the sun that gets up anyway, warms the room, and asks nothing of you in return.

The rays alternate — straight gold spikes and soft curling flames — so the whole disc seems to turn slowly if you look at it long enough. Between the brows I put a single four-pointed star: the small bright thing you keep even on the days the light feels borrowed.

The lavender ground was mixed by hand until it sat exactly between dusk and morning. I wanted a sun that lives in a purple sky, because the good days and the strange days share the same room here.

Hang it in a kitchen, a studio, anywhere you begin. It is a small painting with a long memory.