"You know, Dorothy, It is really to your advantage. So many mainstream newspaper critics, so many public television producers are clinging to the culture of another era. They do not understand that artists reflect the culture, and that the culture has radically changed. Therefore, they are throwing the best of our era at the upstart new media," Sid said.

(As always, Sid knew how to talk to me.)

On the paper, I began to draw the computer screen.
Decided to start with the screen and then work backwards.
From the screen to his hands.
And then his face bent intently over the machine.
The shirt he was wearing.
It was a pale green jersey.
His hair. Grey.

I envisioned the computer with its rows of unopened messages
Sid's hands dominating the painting.
His face in the shadows.
A background of California poppies, lupin, green grass.
The background merging with the foreground.

In front of him on the computer screen
were rows of email messages.
Each unopened message with a dot in front of it.
(like the doors in my kitchen cabinets
with the round handles I had painted blue)
Once he had showed me how the email messages
opened when you clicked on them.

"What an incredible story," Joy said. "I mean that my Mother had a drawing of yours on the wall all that time. When I was a little girl, I loved that drawing. It was so nice of you to let us keep it."

Your father would have wanted you to have it, I wanted to say but of course I did not.

It was impossible not to stare at her face.
about this work | begin again | Dorothy Abrona McCrae | Judy Malloy |