Instructions to Self/How To Draw A Portrait of Your Mother

First look at the old black and white portrait
The one that she loved, her face softly lit

Soft edges like silk / sophisticated

                                        romantic/not Hollywood glam

Look at the picture you've seen a million times
Look at that old picture as if you've never seen it before

Notice she’s the same age you are now

Notice her favorite gold earrings

Polished black and white pale
Look long as if you may never see it again
Keep looking as you draw the outline of her

Rose in Spanish Harlem eyes
With your own eyes first
Slanted almond diamonds

Deep brown like yours

Use soft granite on good paper
Shade as you go along, cross hatch blend
Hear the shh shh shh of your shading

The sound that you’ve loved since you were five
Feel the childhood joy
Your love of drawing

Let it guide you

Now shade the eye lashes of your subject

and the little smile in the corners
and the sparkle

Now her petite nose
the one she passed on to you

Go back to the soft shadow
of her eye lids
and her eyebrows
          supremely 60s style thick like Joan Crawford
          or Diana Ross in the Supremes minus the bee hive wig

Stop and notice how happy she is
Outline the whole face, now

oval like an opal like yours

sketch quickly, forget perfection

Now her smile

her lips
her chin
her dimples
her hair carefully combed

     let go of your ego

          and your need for exactness

You know this face
This is your mother

Use your eraser / to bring out the highlights

     of her cheek bones

                    now blow

Blend like you know how
Use your knuckles and your fingerstips

Make it personal
                    like only you can

Be the artist you are

The one she let go to art schoolwhat doesn’t feel like so many years ago

     Far from the Bronx

          on the #2 train to Manhattan

               taking you to Fordham Road, the week before 
               to buy school clothes

                             and Shipman’s on the Concourse
                             across from where
                            Alexander's used to be
               to buy art supplies

Keep looking at the face you miss
Now pick up a 5B pencil, one of the softest there is
And lean the drawing pad on your grieving lap

And draw the portrait of your mother

And this time don't cry.

by Mariposa María Teresa Fenández