I still remember how it felt, to drive away from the suburb I grew up in and across the country to my new home. My silvery green VW Beetle was packed to the brim with posters, art, crystals, stuffed animals, and house plants. 

I loved one thing about my destination - Las Vegas. It was the palm trees. And the way there were mountains in every direction I looked. And how mostly, none of my terrible decisions were there. I’d joke “I’m from the flat land. It’s all flat. This is all new.” I was too young to realize that changing a place doesn’t change memories or my nervous system. It’s only a distraction that made me think it would.

The sun was powerful, and there was nothing like a fountain dr. pepper from the gas station with the good pebbly ice on a hundred-and-five-degree day. Even the wal marts in the worst neighborhoods were special to me because of the palm trees in the parking lot. 

I had maybe $200 to my name. My Mom sent me a box of paint and canvases so I could make art for my birthday that year. My mentor sent me rice infused with vitamins and stayed on the phone as she taught me how to cook it. Every single day I didn’t think I’d make it out there. Dinner was a carton of cigarettes for the week and a large McDonalds milkshake.

I was alone with just my art supplies in the bleached-out heat of the desert in July, trying to live with the pain of getting everything I thought I wanted. I found out that any palm tree in that city is transplanted there from somewhere else. It doesn’t take long in Vegas to know that every single thing about it can be torn down and put right back up as a new concept a week later. I liked that about it. I could relate.

My relationship with anguish was a lot different back then. I was too stubborn to turn around and go home. So I stuck it out. A lot happened, and most of it was good. Eventually, I left. It was with my new husband to San Diego because of a job I secured, not back to where I came from alone because it hurt too much. 

This painting is a portrait of the faintest ideas of illumination that when followed, become the paths of light that point the way. It is the glimmering truth that all of the little random pieces might eventually make up an inspiring portrait.