To Love, or Not to Love, That is Art

By Ali Murtaza

To Love, or Not to Love, That is Art, chronicles painter Kaela Elizabeth Cedar’s inspiration, the love in her life, and how one influences the other. As she debates her engagement to an uninspiring man, she is met with one that inspires her, incredibly. In the following confusion she recalls her father’s last breaths, her mother’s hysterical shrieks, and her grandfather’s comforting advice, while

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ali Murtaza
• Release date: Jan 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9780615587981

Ali Murtaza

Ali Murtaza was born and raised in Pakistan with a family enriched in story tellers. His grandmother lived through three wars that left her with a flair for late night stories. Her stories often began with their abandoned estate in Africa, and a basement laid with bricks of gold. He came to USA at fourteen, studied at California State University Northridge, as a creative writing student. Ali has been published in magazines such as ‘D-Eye-Y’ and ‘Levels Below’. He writes for the Topanga Messenger. After graduating he took a detour to travel the world. After going through Indonesia and the middle east he found himself in Iran during the protests of 2009. Shortly after he visited the most dangerous city in Mexico, at the time, Ciudad de Juarez. The variety of experiences gained from these travels have left him with an acute voice for a hearty story.

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to,

family, 

friends,

inspiration,

love, love, and love…

___

NO ONE EVER KNOWS

1. She was born on the coldest eve of winter, she never recovered from the effects of her first day. It was snowing faster than her shivering soul, heavier than the troubles that weighed her down, and colder than her heart would become when she tried to breathe later in life.

For Kaela, art was always a struggle and it took her many a year to see stark connections between her personal reality and her art. She lived her years in conflict and resolution, thinking about the many people in her life and many people that were out of her life now. It was always a struggle and it was the only way she knew to live, to exist was to create.

2. You remember things that never happened and when you're done with it all you always paint tragedies.

She spent days thinking about who she was. Was she the granddaughter of Charles and Joanne Elizabeth Dujka? Was she the daughter of Jackie Elizabeth Calendine and Michael Cedar? Who was she? The question hung over her head like the icicle ready to leave the cave ceiling. She did not know whether it was a crisis of identity or a crisis without name. After all a crisis was just another word for chaos and she sometimes believed that there was no chaos in the universe, rather organized disorder. So she just figured that she was Kaela Elizabeth Cedar. Until one day she decided that she didn’t like her name very much and that she must go by Ella. It had a nice ring to it and people seemed to pronounce it much better.

3. When she was thirteen she had reoccurring dreams of a ghost pigeon sitting beyond her windowsill, mocking her softly.

Her confirmation came when a friend in middle school wrote a song out of her name. It was called ‘Ella the good fella.’ She didn’t care much for being called fella, but she was appreciative of the song. It was a love letter to her heart. As it turns out the friend thought of her as nothing but a friend. She found that out when her best friend started to date him. This was the first time she would hear her own heart break. It was painful, and she cried for days. She didn’t want to live in a world where she didn’t have love. She locked herself in the room and wouldn’t eat anything the day she found it all out.

4. She always felt that love was her demise, but more than that she felt that everyone woman and man felt the same way.

It lasted a few weeks and then she could barely remember him. Her friend dumped him and he came for her. It was too late. He hadn’t known that she liked him and had gone for her friend because her friend had seemed like an easy target, so to speak. Ella wasn’t flattered by any of this. Rather she was horrified that he would treat her friend’s heart so recklessly. It was then that she realized that her loyalty must always lie with her friends first. This was also the time that she finally understood the lyrics to a certain Spice Girls song.

5. She saw the coincidences that aligned her life and she could do much less than roll her eyes.

She felt proud of herself that she had discovered the secrets of relationships. Little did she know that she was in for a lot more before it would all be over.

6. You saw the rose petals glazed over her eyes and it was that particular day that you learned to read in between the lines.

7. Her paintings split storylines like splinters caught under softer skin.

8. She felt that she never lived in the world; she was running wild inside the slightest hills in the meadows of her mind.

___

A PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST AS A YOUNG WOMAN

1. Your father cried when he held you in his arms for the first time.

The dirt shuffled off him as he wrestled through the screen that Mother had put up to keep out the pesky insects that found her cooking utterly desirable. She screamed at the top of her lungs and found that the neighbors weren’t appreciative of her unusually high pitch that they had to bear even without the unfortunate cooking accidents. Like the time when she had locked herself out of the house and screamed for someone to open the door, even though there was no one inside. The fireman from next door who had just fought the greatest fire of his career ran down the door, panting like a dog. He collided with solid wood time and time again, until the screams drowned out his logic and he ploughed through the door and landed head first on the bulldog. Only the sirens could drown out her screams after that.

2. You drove the 1964 Mustang through the mechanics alley, the boys leered a second too long and you rolled your eyes at their obsession, but couldn’t you have driven down the boulevard instead?

3. Seven times seven stopped being a straight answer and then you flipped the hours, days, minutes, and the nights.

4. You knew they looked on in jealousy as you wrapped yourself around his arms, but only you felt that you had to hold tighter not to feel the loneliness. If you let go of him you might have to walk the pier alone and the eyes would not look in jealousy, they would pity.

Mother said it once, and if she had, then it meant that she had said it a million times. Boys want one thing and it is your duty in life to guard it, so they might not have it. She however forgot to mention how it could be used to trap a hardworking man coming home from an honest days work, a man struggling with his own daemons that would only become more apparent with time.

5. Trouble. Trouble was brewing barely a few miles away from when we stopped counting ages and started counting days.

6. You whispered in his ear, but you made sure that their eyes recounted your every word.

7. In retrospect, a little more time would have gone much further.

8. You wanted to learn to ride a bike on the weekends and perhaps the weekdays too, but the harsh weather left blemishes on your heavily powdered nose, and that was unacceptable. 

The amount of make up that she put on, on the nights that she went out could have served a cadaver well. She applied and reapplied to get it just right, regardless of the fact that at the end of the night it would drip down her cheeks and find its place on the overpriced rug. She cursed Father on those nights, not because he had left her all alone in this god-forsaken world, but that he had not taken her with him. She never let those tears make it through closed doors but her anger, driven by frustration the next morning was as revealing as the streaks that her mascara had drawn down her face.

9. The cliffs move when no one is looking, they are afraid of those drawing too close to the edge.

10. You took him to the ocean but you still felt alone without your sketchpad by your side.

11. They were all growing up faster than they could imagine. Learning about the intricate balance between art and love, and how it could let your world collapse in a single thought.

There was a slight knock on the door and another one following shortly after that. It was the homeowners association with their fake smiles and real threats regarding the various incidents that had caused some of the immediate neighbors a huge discomfort. Mother looked each one in the eye and apologized sincerely, or at least that’s what she said, regardless of her stance on unfelt apologies. The only time she ever really meant her apologies were when she said them to the crickets that she purposefully crushed under her heels as she walked down the driveway. It made little sense to anyone why she apologized to crickets; they tried to reason and argue but could never get a straight answer from her.

12. You saw the distant rainbow and his words became a murmur in your silence. You painted pictures in your head that night, and somehow, someway he felt it but just couldn’t stop talking.

13. The thought of old men walking can torture your living dreams.

14. You knew you were consumed the second you laid eyes on him. It wasn’t love that drove you to him, but it was what kept you there, or so you thought at the time.

She woke up in the middle of the night and saw him sleeping there silently and she smiled because she didn’t feel alone, and then she could go back to her dreams where he never existed. The next morning when he wasn’t there again she wondered where her dreams had started and where they ended.

15. He convulsed and popped two more pills in his mouth as he wrote his last testament in which he left his beloved 1964 Mustang, he called it his bat mobile, to his only true love, his daughter.

16. You should have lived forever, only so you would bore yourself to death in days.

She met her first love in a darkened alley before the incident. He was a businessman, controlled and calm in his approach towards everything except his personal life and Mother became a part of that personal life within days. She learned to scream louder in those days.

17. Your father lost all his hair when he was in his thirties, but wasn’t he beautiful when he stood on the ledge in triumph? He conquered all his fears and every few seconds he looked back at you with tears in his eyes. He was amazing, and you knew it.

18. You saw the bikes ride where your father had taken you as a child and you wished you were the tail of the parade, but your thoughts were interrupted by the thought of running mascara. 

19. The EMT’s wondered why Batman would overdose.

20. You raced him in the parking lot, round and round and round in your red cape and they didn’t call you Red Riding Hood, they called you Robin. If only you had found him earlier, maybe you wouldn’t have lived in disparity.

21. In an instant you went across the ocean, swimming back was a bit harder.

22. You didn’t know how your heart beat, even though you had heard it a million miles a second.

23. Walk the night alone and when you reach the shore turn around and search for the Atlantic on the other edge, and when you find that maybe the Pacific will call you once more.

She ran to the cliff and cried in pain to the ears that seemed deaf to her. Her words were silent but her tears screamed into the midnight air, regardless there was not a single creek. Even the ocean went silent for those minutes. She was broken. She was defeated and through this she arose a fury that would be her life from the day forward. She ran back home with a single thought in her head.

24. You were told to nurture the artist that breathes within you, but she was never in there and you had been faking it for too long to stop.

25. Be an artist or be a lover. Sometimes it’s the only choice. Father knew that much too well.

Mother let you run ahead to show daddy the red cape that you got at your best friends party. You were surprised when you saw him sitting in the