Last month my husband Brent and I celebrated our anniversary.
Anniversaries and birthdays can be a challenge. What to gift the most important person in my life? A nice pen? Boring. A new shirt and tie? Boring. Something for the house? Boring. Tickets to a show? Mmmm… , maybe.
Days, weeks, a couple months thinking about it, listening for hints to drop. Brent has everything and what he doesn’t have he gets for himself or we don’t have the budget for it.
Finally I came up with an idea – I will draw a portrait of the two of us. Not your usual portrait, but an abstract portrait. A symbolic portrait.
My inspiration arose from a recurrent chuckle we get when we see our bodies next to each other. Walking around on any day of life, we don’t even think about our skin tones, but when we are together, we realize Brent’s skin is pink and mine appears yellow next to his. And for some reason, we enjoy this contrast. Maybe it reminds us of the contrasts in our personalities and styles that sometimes bring surprises, other times frustration, and often humor.
My drawing depicts Brent and me, our pink and yellow selves, at some moment in time, entwined, moving through life, and still in love after 12 years.
Happy Anniversary, Brent!
