For Nicole Payne. Happy Birthday.

A Picture and a Thousand Words

This is not a very good picture.  You can’t even see faces.  But there might be a story’s worth of insight, even in an abstract, artistic way, and that’s always the best way anyways.  The two backs we are seeing are owners of two fronts, belonging to Justin and Nicole Payne.  They are married, and with arms wrapped around one another, surely recognize the symbolism of their posture. 

Matching outfits and coordinating colors can only take a marriage so far but it certainly is a great start.  A wardrobe can tell many things about a person, and maybe that sweater or whatever it is, tells a lot about Nicole.  Maybe it tells nothing about her.  Maybe it tells that she’s well put together, has an eye, a taste.  A person who can pick out clothes is a good person to imitate.  They understand the lily of the valley philosophy of life, the foresight to know where the day and evening takes them.  Nicole knows where she is going. 

She is following and she is supporting.  An arm on the shoulders will lead, and the arm on the waist supports. There is a door that is being opened in the corner of the frame and with a man like Justin Payne an open door can only mean adventure.  The door is not opened all the way provoking some unknown mystery, where only the brave and bold would enter.  As one said, behind every great man is a greater woman.  He may lead but she is there to sustain.  And, it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyways, Nicole sustains with love.

The irony of this door, and what the picture does not disclose, is that it leads only to a water heater.  But does that strip away the adventure?  Maybe, but I am certain they have smiling faces that the picture does not show.  There is no lack of joy as both Nicole and Justin appreciate the irony of things.  The musing and meditation of such an appreciation certainly has its complex sources: family history, intelligence, wit, introspection, etc. but ultimately the equation can be summed up as thus: Nicole is a woman of fun. 

We then see or try to see a handful of people who are blurred and out of focus, framed under Nicole’s left arm, conjuring up the natural avian metaphors.  Nicole, the mother hen.  If signs of life, and the good Lord’s decree, serves any direction and confirmation it is that the Payne’s will be those who lead others.  Justin, as we mentioned, leading; Nicole supporting, but also comforting and protecting.  There is no lack of human attention or care when Nicole is one of the company. 

These people are out of focus due to distance.  The compassion, the patience and gentleness will inevitably lead them closer to this couple, which will thus bring them into focus.  People are sharper, they know themselves, their identity is clearer when they’re with Nicole.  She is a woman of understanding.  Peaceable and sensible, Nicole angles her way through life, in which expectations can only be the best for the best.  She is a woman, and a woman of many titles.  A mother? Yes. Wife? Yes. Friend? Yes. Sister? One and many.  Daughter? Certainly.  Yes, in this picture we only see their backs, but such was enough for Moses – and so like Father, follows the daughter.  

(Also, this was not a thousand words...)