Three
“Any time you’re ready,” I tell it.
The canvas remains unmoved by my encouragement.
Five minutes ago, I moved the easel closer to the windows. Yesterday, I turned the whole canvas around and worked from the back, reaching the stage of creative desperation where I believe art has a preferred orientation.
That didn’t work either.
My studio is a small, converted warehouse next to my house.
Pete, my landlord—a retired electrician who communicates almost exclusively through nods—offered it to me when I moved in three years ago.
He said it was just sitting there, that I could use it for whatever I wanted, and that the lighting was terrible.
He was wrong about the light. Two of the walls face east and catch the morning sun perfectly. When I strung extra lights along the beams for winter, Pete showed up halfway through with a ladder and rewired two of the fixtures without asking. That was the longest interaction we’ve ever had.
The smell of linseed oil and turpentine usually settles me the second I walk in. Today, it feels accusatory. You’re standing in a studio. Where’s the art?
There’s plenty of evidence that art should be happening.
A commissioned piece leans against the far wall, half-finished.
Another sits under a bedsheet because I got so sick of looking at it last week that covering it felt safer than setting it on fire.
Then there are the canvases for the show. Far too many of them remain blank.
The show is three months away. Plenty of time. Artists build entire collections in three months. I could Google it to confirm, but that’s how I’d end up reading about some twenty-two-year-old in Berlin who painted thirty-seven pieces over a weekend. I don’t need that kind of negativity.
“Three months,” I say to the blank canvas. “You’re not worried?”
Apparently not. I am, though.
The gallery has been more patient with me than I deserve.
They found me at a group show two years ago—six artists crammed into a converted industrial space downtown.
One of the owners liked my work enough to follow up.
A few meetings became representation. Representation became commissions.
Then they offered me a solo show. My first.
I spent months preparing for it, and then… I canceled.
I don’t let myself dwell on that part. There’s no point. This time is different. I have three months, several completed pieces, two commissions to wrap up, and a functioning body.
Mostly functional.
I reach for the brush again. My left hip locks, a dull ache running down my thigh. I shift my weight to my right leg.
You’re limping again.
I’m not letting Hudson into my studio. He’s taken up far too much brain space since yesterday. His voice doesn’t get to live here, too.
“Damn head doctor,” I say to the empty room.
I force my weight back onto my left leg out of pure spite, then pick up my palette knife anyway, because doing nothing feels worse than doing something badly.
I mix burnt sienna with raw umber and a little cadmium orange, working the paint in slow circles, waiting for the mental click that usually tells me what I need.
But today, burnt sienna and raw umber just become brown.
Groundbreaking. Someone alert the gallery.
Giving up, I scrape the palette clean when my phone chimes on the workbench behind me. The screen is cracked, light bleeding through the glass.
Appointment with Dr. Elaine Mercer. 10:30 a.m. Don’t be late again.
“Shit.” I’m definitely going to be late again.
My house is twelve feet away. I make it nine feet before my hip catches. I breathe through the sharp pull and keep moving.
You’re limping again.
“Oh, go away, Hudson.”
My house is a mess. The second I walk in, I notice every chore I’ve neglected, but I don’t have time to deal with my failures as a homeowner when I’m already late for my failures as a patient.
There isn’t much paint to wash off, which somehow makes the whole effort feel even more depressing. I scrub the blue pigment out of my cuticles anyway and wash my hair as fast as my wrists allow. By the time I finish, the water is warm, and I no longer want to die.
Physically, at least.
∞∞∞
I arrive eleven minutes late for my appointment.
It’s a personal best. Anatomical diagrams of cross-sectioned joints line Dr. Mercer’s walls, alongside shelves of heavily used reference books.
I’ve been seeing her for eight months—my third specialist. The first treated me like a collection of malfunctioning symptoms attached to an inconvenient person.
The second retired. Mercer is brisk and precise, and she doesn’t waste time on empty reassurance. I appreciate that about her.
“So.” She sits at her desk and opens my file. “How have you been feeling since our last appointment?”
“Fine.”
She stops typing. I hate when she does that.
“Fine, how?”
“Fine-fine. Alive. Functioning. Vertical.”
Her mouth twitches, but she keeps her voice level. “Rowan.”
“Mostly vertical.”
“Let’s start there. How has the pain been?”
“Manageable. A five, sometimes a six.”
“How often is sometimes?”
I look up at the ceiling tile. Why can’t doctors accept a vague answer? “Four, maybe five.”
She types.
“You’re very difficult to lie to.”
“I’d hope so.”
“Part of medical school?”
“Natural talent.”
I pause, giving up. “I’ve had flares. Mostly the left hip. My wrists have been worse, too.”
“Dislocations?”
“Partial.” I hesitate, and her fingers freeze over the keyboard. “My shoulder, but it went back on its own.”
“When?”
“Last Tuesday, while I was sleeping.” Which is a joke if you ask me.
She makes a note before we work through the rest of the checklist: compression garments for my POTS, which I admit I wear when I remember, and the beta-blocker to keep my heart rate from spiking every time I stand up.
It’s finally at the right dose after three months of adjustments that left me so sedated I had to stop driving for a while.
I told my family I was simply in a “walking-for-mindfulness” phase.
Why they believed that, coming from a woman who once drove two blocks to avoid walking in the rain, remains a mystery.
“Anti-inflammatories?” she asks.
I make a face. “They wreck my stomach.”
Mercer takes off her glasses and rubs the bridge of her nose. “Because you need to take them with food.”
She stands and gestures toward the exam table. We run through the physical checks. She checks the hypermobility in my thumbs and knees before pressing carefully around my left hip joint.
I flinch.
“Does that hurt?”
“A little,” I answer honestly.
“That kind of joint pain isn’t unusual with hypermobile EDS, especially when the joint’s been under extra strain.”
By the time she finishes the exam, I’m sitting on the edge of the table, sore and tired.
“The overall picture is similar to last time. No significant deterioration, which is good.”
Some of the tension leaves my shoulders.
“But you’re still pushing past your limits,” she adds as she sits back down in her chair. “You’re accumulating interest on bad days you can’t afford to pay back.”
She says it without judgment, which is why I keep coming back to her.
“Physio?” she asks.
“Good. I’m doing more of the home exercises.”
She turns back to her monitor. “How’s work?”
My back goes rigid. I give her the bare minimum, which lasts only about four questions before she sees right through it.
“You answered every question about your health without hesitation,” she says. “I ask about painting, and I get one-word answers. Why are you avoiding the topic?”
I pick at a loose thread on my jeans. “I’m having a bit of a block.”
“How long?”
“Forty-three days.”
Her eyebrows lift. “Have you painted anything in that time?”
“This morning I painted a brown line.”
“What about the commissions?”
“Working on them.”
“And the show?”
“Three months away.”
“That’s soon.”
“Thank you, Doc. I hadn’t noticed.”
“Are you worried?”
“Yes, but I have time. Three months is plenty. I have finished pieces, and the commissions are separate. Once I get going again, I’ll be fine.”
“Once you get going? And if you don’t?”
“I will.”
She studies me, and I know she’s thinking about last year. She wasn’t my doctor then, but I’ve told her how badly the stress affected me physically.
“I’m not canceling this one,” I say firmly.
“I didn’t suggest you should. Did somebody else? Your family?”
I laugh once. “My family would support me if I quit painting tomorrow to raise alpacas.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“They know about the block.”
“Do they know about the pain?”
“No. I’m managing it.”
“And last year?”
I look away. “What about it?”
“You canceled your first solo show. Are you afraid it will happen again?”
“No,” I lie.
The memory floods my mind: canvases lined up, half-finished, my hands hurting too much to hold a brush, my shoulders burning, my hips refusing to let me stand for more than ten minutes. Telling myself I’d make it up tomorrow. Then the next day. Until there were no days left.
“You told me you struggled to lift your arms some days, and you kept pushing anyway.”
“What was I supposed to do?”
“Ask for help earlier.”
“With painting?”
“With everything.” Her voice remains calm. “The gallery was understanding about it?”
“Yes.”
“Your family?”
“Also understanding.” I tug at the thread on my denim again. “They weren’t angry or disappointed in me. They were disappointed for me, but they weren’t surprised, either.”
“That bothered you.”
Great. Now we’re dealing with feelings.
“They think I’m laid-back,” I say, looking at my lap. “Which I am about most things. I don’t care if dinner is at seven or nine, and I don’t have a color-coded five-year plan like my sister. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about my work.”
“Do they think you don’t?”
“I don’t know.” That’s the truth. “They only see the outcome. They see me pull out of a show or claim it wasn’t a big deal. They don’t see the three weeks before that, when I’m tearing myself apart trying to make it work.”
“Because you don’t show them.” She pauses. “You didn’t fail last year, Rowan. Your body reached a point where continuing was physically impossible. That is not the same thing as failing.”
“It means I didn’t do the show, which was the one thing I was supposed to do.”
She folds her hands on her desk. “Last year, you pushed until canceling was the only option left. I don’t want to see you do that again.”
Neither do I. That’s the problem.
“Which brings me to something else,” she says. “Have you given any more thought to psychological support?”
“Head doctors aren’t my thing.”
“Head doctors?”
“Psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists. Anyone who stares at you for too long and asks how things make you feel. My brother is a psychologist, but I love him, so he gets a pass.”
“Is this because of your mother?”
My shoulders stiffen. “That’s a stretch.”
“Is it inaccurate?”
I stare at the anatomical knee diagram on the wall. Tibial plateau. Femoral condyle. Meniscus. Safe. Nobody asks a knee joint how it feels about its childhood.
“My mother has bipolar disorder,” I say. “Her mental health is managed.”
“I know, but you spent a large part of your childhood watching someone you love navigate a severe illness. It’s understandable if you may have learned young that engaging with mental health care feels like surrendering control.”
I don’t have a joke ready for that.
“Her experience isn’t yours,” Mercer continues. “Therapy isn’t something done to you. You choose the provider, and you can walk out whenever you want. I also think you could benefit from a space to talk about what it feels like to live in your body.”
“I talk.”
“About this?”
“We’re literally talking about it right now.”
“You spend these appointments trying to convince me you’re fine. You told me you were fine after admitting your shoulder partially dislocated while you were asleep.”
“I don’t understand how talking about my joints is going to fix my joints.”
“It won’t, but it might change how you respond when your body doesn’t cooperate.”
I bark a humorless laugh. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“Pain affects mood,” she says. “Fatigue affects cognition. Chronic illness changes how you work, how you socialize, and how safe it feels to want things when you don’t know whether your body will let you have them.” She opens a desk drawer. “I can’t order you to do anything, but take this home.”
She slides a pamphlet across the desk.
Westbrook Medical and Research Center.
“There’s a chronic illness program that combines medical support with psychological services. I’ve referred patients there for years.”
“A support group?”
“They offer group therapy, yes.”
I scan the text: Individual therapy. Group programs. Chronic pain management. Research.
“I don’t want to sit in a circle and tell strangers about my joints.”
“Then don’t.”
“That’s it? No persuasive speech?”
“I’ve already given you several.”
I smile despite myself and shove the folded paper into my pocket. “I’ll keep it.”
“And think about it?”
“I’ll think about it.”
She stands, signaling the end of the appointment. “Fluids. Compression garments. Physio. And don’t ignore that hip if the pain increases.”
I schedule my follow-up at the front desk and push through the glass doors into the overcast morning.
Halfway across the parking lot, my fingers touch the folded pamphlet in my pocket.
There’s a trash can twenty feet away. Mercer would never know.
You’re limping again.
I clench my jaw. First Hudson, now Mercer. Apparently, everyone has an opinion about my body except me, and now one of them wants me to enter a building full of people whose entire job is to analyze me.
God, I hate head doctors so much.