-where art takes us-

the sun's shadow

"You ready hun?" my mother asks me when I closed the front door.

"I guess so" I answer. I get in the back and put my stuff next to me.

The entire ride we listened to my favorite songs, and mom and grandma kept looking at me and beaming at me like the Cheshire cat. I would have fallen asleep long ago if it hadn't been so strange in the car.

When I was finally about to fall asleep, we suddenly stop. I wake up and realize that we have arrived but not just at some random small lake but at lake Michigan.

The sun is already setting and bathes everything in a sea of red and orange tones, hardly a human soul is still to be seen and the beach lies at our feet in its emptiness.

The moment the ground changes from grass to sand and my toes get lost in the sand, a certain serenity spreads through my entire self. As if nothing else had ever reigned but infinite peace. I walk a few more steps and slide backwards onto the soft sand.

The remaining light of the sun blinds me so I hold my arm over my face and notice the sand moving to my left. As I turn my head in the direction the movement is coming from, I see Akna setting down a picnic basket and spreading a blanket with the help of my grandmother. On the one hand, with this view, it would have been worth taking my drawing shit with me, but at the same time, it would have completely missed the purpose of our visit, which is why I'm glad that mother also decided against it.

This time she really seems to be able to tune out her work and focus on us. She taps on my shoulder and screams "catch me if you can" as she runs to the water. I get up strip off my overalls and run after her.

In the sprint, our hair flies out of our faces, and the water splashes on our thighs. Mom turns to me and walks backward, the sun shining directly on her slightly crossed eyes, which sparkle a warm green, surpassing the warmth of the sun. Her Mayan features are underscored by the warm light, her large nose casts shadows on her golden skin and her smile emanates a beauty rarely seen so truly.

Her sharp filed teeth adorned with small jade crystals accentuate the hardness that contrasts with the rest of her soft features, like the curves and dark long hair and rounded brows that frame the unique shape of her eyes.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and wish she was my birth mother, just wish I was a little more like her. Everything about her seems to shine and I fade next to her. An inconspicuous spot next to the radiant sun that warms the heart while I chase everything away so as not to have to admit that nothing about me is enough to stay voluntarily.

Every time I catch myself having thoughts like this, I hate myself even more. Living as a minority no matter how beautiful it may be is a lot harder than my life will ever be. My white skin will open doors for me that were always closed to her and yet I complain that I was not born part of a culture that was exploited and enslaved.

I disgust myself.

I disgust myself so much.

How can my mother look at me and not see the downfall of her history and tradition?

And yet every morning till evening she looks at me as if I were her most precious treasure, something she found by chance, fragile and small, and is raising it to bring it back to its beauty with no intention of ever releasing it because that would take away from her life exactly what she found when she thought she didn't need it... a family.

"Are you coming back or do you expect me to run after you? My bones can't take it anymore. oameni nerecunoscători." granny calls us from her place on the blanket. We turn to her and can still see her wild waving around as an expression of their annoyance.

Sitting on the blanket we all eat the sandwiches and fruits we brought with us. Although it is getting darker, the heat does not decrease and the last rays of sun melt on our skin. It's only now that I notice that Mom has taken off her cardigan, revealing her tattoos.

You rarely see them, because grandmother generally has something against body mutilation, which was also a huge problem for me, but after the twenty-seventh, she gave up. However, Akna always used to cover up her tattoos so as not to arouse the anger of her mother-in-law.

After Sophia understood the meaning of this she changed her mind. For mom these are a deep connection to her ancestors and gods, most tattoos depict gods or symbols of Maya for protection or distinction like the two on her upper arm.

One looks a little like an octopus, but it is the symbol for Chuwen, the god of creation, and stands for her art. Directly below, Manik is a symbol of protection, which she was given at birth. A rather inconspicuous one is Kimi, it differs not only in the meaning but also in the style. Kimi is representative of death and was not given to her with paint but as a scar so that it can only be seen in certain angles and light like right now.

She got it pierced when dad died.  Whenever she thinks of him, she gently strokes the spot that is the only thing she has left of him.

As the stars start to show we pack our things and get back to our car. During the drive, I look for star constellations and hope to catch a shooting star without success. In the dark, the stars and moon stand as consolation in the absence of the sun, guiding you until it reappears.

Without the sun, life seems to have stood still and been extinguished, no color, life, movement except your own and of the few animals that see the stillness and darkness as a blanket to their own loneliness. Ones that hide in the shadows and refuse the warmth that others offer them.

Those whose beauty is not accentuated in the light but in the darkness, where lies concealing all those flaws that might surface if you looked at them more closely. No matter how you look at it, beauty can be found in both light and shadow, you just have to allow it to find you.