A letter to Freedom

Dear Freedom,

I woke up this morning on the last day of packing to head back down south. Bloomington has not been altogether unkind to me, but if I had only known that it was my skin color that prevented my peers, my own 'white' peers from accepting me and my art, I would have saved myself a lot of pain and wasted energy. My best friend Eric is coming over later to help me finish painting the house. Once this feverish explosion of energy finally wore off, I was told to separate the last of the items in the three upstairs bedrooms. All that's left are old family pictures of people who are unrecognizably transformed, but thankfully all still living. The Hutchinson family is still alive. I have taken great time and great care in separating what I want to take, and what I want to leave behind. Now the movers, who are working on a deadline are telling me pick out which paintings go to my dad's new house and his new life in Ithaca, New York and which of my paintings go back with me and my Mom to his old life Oak Ridge, TN. What is strange, is that I've finally been able to let go of any preconceived notion of what success is and how it is defined. What is strange, is that I've hit that moment of surrender after the last fervent expenditure of energy that hits young artists who are entering their 30's. I am not afraid of the next wave. I am not afraid of the ones who left me behind. I am not afraid of anything but God now, and I have done my best to earn his Forgiveness. I feel like this is normally the point of a person's life where they look back and decide that to surrender to Destiny is to fail. That the struggle is pointless. I have surrendered to Destiny, but I have not resigned to failure. It is impossible for me to do so. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't. I have not committed suicide as many often do, I have not discarded my paintings as many often do. The only thing that I have surrendered is the desperate belief that I too was White. The only thing that I hold onto is the present moment, and the urgency with which I have to abandon this town that has turned so fully against me and flee once more to secluded territory where I can be with my Mom and my Grandma in her twilight years. I have surrendered at last once and for all. But it was not in defeat, it has been in the knowledge that I have already won the battle, my put down my arms, and look over all that I have worked so hard to achieve.

-Spencer Hutchinson
Thursday, May 24, 2012
12:15pm