In honor of the Royal Wedding of William and Kate, which I stayed up all night to watch (yes I did) I present you with the one hat you should have seen, but didn’t because Posh changed her mind at the last minute, dag nabbit. Â Another chance of fame and untold wealth down the drain. Â Oh well.
Drawing, exquisite design and pithy commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Millinery Consortium, LTD.
I helped raised 4 daughters. Â There was plenty of drama over the years, but what I loved seeing as they grew is their increased ability to hold on with some degree of peace and serenity when their personal or communal storms were raging all around. They weren’t, and aren’t, always successful, any more than I am, but the maturity to have that peace hold longer and stronger is always growing in them, and I am very proud of that.
The ability to find some peace amid a storm is not just beneficial to you, but to everyone around you.
GREAT NEWS! Â As some of you may know, I do artwork outside of the napkins. I have focused on photo-collage work for many years and I found out yesterday that an exhibition proposal I submitted 6 months ago has been accepted. Â The show will open in Tulsa in January of 2012. Â I am very excited about it! I will keep you posted about the details as the time approaches. Â If you want to know what the theme is, read this napkin and commentary, it tells it all.
We look at ancient ruins and we think they have value. Â Toppled over, chipped, missing big chunks and yet we see their beauty. Â Oil paintings covered with years of grime and soot, cracked and drying and yet we see them as beautiful. Â Old furniture on Antique Road Show, better not have refinished it since the original condition, all scratched up and dirty, is much more valuable.
What about what remains of you after a storm? Â Are you chipped, scarred, damaged, missing pieces? Â You are MORE valuable and MORE relatable in that condition than in a pristine one. Â You have become real after that storms.
YOUR TORNADOESÂ When I do drawings on natural disasters, like the tsunami/earthquake series of last month, I always think of them as metaphors. Â In this case the crazy way our thoughts and feelings can twist us all around, even if all looks peaceful and pretty on the outside. Â It’s hard to overcome habitual tornadoes in our mind, those storms we are so used to in our head that we almost would miss them if they were gone. Â I think of it often when I see people purposefully create drama in their lives.
It’s true on reality TV shows, where the draw comes from watching people who have interesting tornadoes they are more than happy to share with the world. It’s also true among any who are more interested in feeding the storm than escaping it.
Where are do your tornadoes come from?
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Every spring in my neck of the woods, Oklahoma, we get hit by some pretty severe weather. Â This past week we have had high winds that almost blew my small car off the road, hard hail the size of quarters and half dollars that dinged up my car (see the video here), incredible rain that has created an almost swimmable pond in my back yard, and solid black thunderclouds that look like an anvil about to drop on you.
Of course the superstar in this weather cataclysm is the TORNADO. Â To those outside the midwest of the US, tornadoes seem like the most capricious and dangerous of events, but in truth they are among the most predictable. Â I don’t mean you can always know when and where they will hit, but you can know the circumstances and environment when they will create themselves. If those circumstances aren’t there, the tornado will not form.
When those circumstances are there, when it’s bearing down right on you, you get in the basement. If you don’t have a basement you get in an interior room, preferably a bathroom and you get in the tub. You then put a mattress on top of you.
I have a friend who is going through a life tornado now. She is hurt by the storm so far, but she is also doing the smart thing by getting as far away from the storm as she can. She is no longer on certain social networks, she is removing herself from a job, and (not because of the tornado) she is moving to a new town. Â You might think she is giving up but she is not. She is protecting herself from a very mean and vicious tornado as best she can.
Sometimes it’s what you need to do when a life tornado is approaching.
It not every day you get a compliment like this:  ‘You know, my son’s head is nice and square, just like yours.’ My friend G.K. said it to me this week when I went to the post office. He had a full bin of mail and I held the door as he went past.  He said it to me casually, in an off-hand way, like he was saying he liked my shoes. I took it as the compliment it was meant to be and thanked him. It actually was my first hint about his private life after many years of talking to each other. Before that I knew he didn’t like thunderstorms and that the town uses crummy asphalt to fill potholes.
Now I knew G.K. had a son with a square head. I wondered briefly if he had a daughter and if she had a different shaped head, maybe more like her mother, maybe triangular, or oblong. My thoughts didn’t stay on a theoretical head shape very long because I had something more than junk mail in my box to consider.
Real mail in my PO Box is a rarity. I mean real mail for me. I get more mistake mail that I have to give back to Bettina, the woman at the counter, than I get real mail for me. That day I got a beautiful envelope, exquisitely hand-colored that wasn’t for me. It was suppose to be in box 845 but was put in my box, 745, instead.  In the corner, where the ‘from’ address would be, there was only a bright pink outline of a state. I recognized the state as Alabama. The ‘to’ address was written in script, in a rich, deep blue. It was to Melissa. No last name, just Melissa. The drawing was of a beautiful sunrise.
I waited behind a very tall woman sending a package to Racine, Wisconsin and then gave the envelope back to Bettina. She looked at it and said ‘Wow, someone is sending some love to Melissa, aren’t they.’ I said ‘Yep, she will appreciate it I am sure’. She responded, ‘Who wouldn’t.’ It was one of the few times I saw her smile. I bought some stamps with players from the old Negro Baseball League on them and made way for the stressed out mom with 2 toddlers behind me.
Now I knew a little bit of love in the mail made Bettina smile. And I knew someone in town named Melissa was going to receive a beautiful, creative envelope. I thought about the person in Alabama who spent all that time on it and I thought about Melissa. I imagined what sort of person she might be to get something like that. I thought about what might be inside the envelope. Was it as beautiful? What was its message?
I smiled all the way through my shopping trip to Vern’s Village Mart. I had to get orange juice.
I had a lot of fun drawing these ‘Mother’s Day’ cards this week. I also spent a good deal of time customizing the cards so they are funny, thoughtful and speak just the right thing to a Mother.
If you like the Napkins and The Napkin Dad Daily, now would be the perfect time to show it by making a purchase of one or more of these for a mother you know.
Perfect for a new mother on Mother’s Day (or any day!) Available as a card and a cup.  Here is the front of the card.
Got a busy mom?  Get her this for Mother’s Day. Available as a card and a cup.  Here is the front of the card.
The perfect sentiment from a daughter to a mom.  You know who she is. Available as card and a cup.  Here is the front of the card.
Hey Fathers, you have to get something for your wife on Mother’s Day too you know! Â Available as a card and cup. Â Here is the front of the card.
Definitely made for your favorite Catholic or Episcopal mom! Available as a cup.
Thanks everyone, I hope you enjoy the new drawings and merchandise. Â I would love to have suggestions and ideas for more ways to bring the napkins into people’s world in a positive way.
Day #5 of Mother’s Week. Â Don’t forget, you now have FIVE different napkin drawings to choose from for the Mother’s Day present you are going to eventually get for your mother (or suggest to your children and husband to get for you!) Â Why not make it more unique than a Hallmark card, make it a Napkin Dad card or cup!
I very rarely have to start over on napkins. Â Today I started FOUR times before I got it right. I am glad I did, it’s a favorite of mine now.
I love my wife, Linda, and I understand it is a great example and gift I can give my children to love her, even if they are grown adults. Â It might seem most important in regards to my step-daughter, Caitlin, since she is the actual offspring of Linda, but in truth, all my daughters watch to see how I work on the relationship.
I am not a guy who obsesses about things I regret, but I do wish I had understood and acted on this more completely when I was married to my first wife.Â
Whether it’s confession, absolution, forgiveness or advice, moms pretty much have it over Priests or anyone else for that matter. Father’s can be pretty good at it too!
Day #2 of MOTHER’S WEEK at the NDD – time to think about what you are going to get for yours (or what you are going to suggest to your children to get for you) for Mother’s Day. It’s less than 3 weeks away. The Napkin Dad has great stuff available at Zazzle.com. Some are Mother’s Day oriented some are just good messages you know she would love to get.
Mother’s Day #2 by NapkinDad
The front of the card has the mom missing from the image and says “Mom, I have had a religious realization and i wanted you to know about it”. The inside of the card has the drawing with the mother as you see above.
Ask any mother, whether with one kid or 10, what life is like and they will all say they wish they had as many arms as the mother in the drawing does! Most of the mom’s I know actually do have this many arms, but all but two of them stretch out from her heart, not her body.
If you are anticipating Mother’s Day coming up, I would love if you would
consider buying one of these to give.
I like this quote. Made me think about motherhood in a whole new way. The whole idea that a mother becomes this new creature, just as her child does when it is born, is a wonderful way to look at it, don’t you think?
I am not quite sure how I ended up in Sunrise. Â I can tell you the steps I took to get to here, but I wouldn’t be able to show you the path. Â Sunrise, Oklahoma is a pretty small town, maybe about 2,000 people. Â Some were raised here, but most found their way here the same way I did, unexpectedly.
I don’t know all that many people in Sunrise. Â There’s the guy I keep running into at the post office. Â I don’t know what he does but he’s friendly and wears an orange vest. Â He always thinks he knows me from somewhere, but he doesn’t. Â I know the person at the counter at the Post Office as well. Â I know her because I have to bring mail that was put in my box by mistake back to her. I usually have to do this 3 or 4 times for the same letter before it ceases to appear again. Â She seems a bit hassled at times, but I get the sense that it’s because she has this need to do a really good job.
People ask me why the town is named Sunrise. Â There are stories that have been told; convoluted stories about colorful bank robbers in the 1910’s, an oil find in the 1920’s and even farther back, a mysterious Indian settlement in the 1890’s. Â They all have some explanation for why this spot was named Sunrise. Â But as with many great stories, they only point to the obvious, whether they are true or not. Â The truth is it’s named Sunrise because of the sunrise. Â The most beautiful, exquisite sunrises you have ever, or will ever see, come up each morning in Sunrise, Oklahoma.
Something small happens every day in Sunrise; very small things, very unimportant things. Â That is how most people in town view what it is they do each day. Some, the oldest and youngest adults, can, on occasion, feel a bit of regret at not having gone away to do big things, but they don’t obsess about it. Â If they were the type to obsess, they didn’t stay in Sunrise much longer than their 18th birthday. Â Those that stayed were happy with their lives, the smallness giving them comfort and security.
I blew it today. I forgot the word ‘up’ in the quote. Â I was going to start over, but then I read it a few times and thought it is perhaps even more apropos without the ‘up’ since it applies to more people. Â I don’t see myself as obsessed with self and I bet you don’t see yourself that way either. Â But nonetheless I often find myself unaware or unconcerned about things outside myself. Â It makes me small when I am unaware and unconcerned, whether it’s about the neighboring field or the neighboring galaxy. Â It also makes me ineffective.
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As I was finding this quote about our egos and our place in the universe this morning I happened upon a time-lapse photography video that illustrated the same thing. Â Thanks to Leesa Parker for posting it on Facebook.
I haven’t added to The Napkin Dad’s Encyclopedia of Characters and Stuff for quite a while. I realized I had added some new characters lately and wanted to update.
Introducing our good friend, always in the distance, Radio Tower!
You will often see Radio Tower in the far distance, on a hill. She broadcasts all day and night, never resting. Her signal never grows weak and she can withstand gale force winds (though she doesn’t like them). You will see her when what is being said should be transmitted to a large audience. She’s your clue to share the napkin.
She is sometimes lonely, but a wind farm is moving in nearby and she is looking forward to flirting with the turbines, she hears they are sexy.
Mark Twain wrote this long before photos of naked people were the main traffic on the internet. But even now, a bit of clothes influences more than no clothes.
Men or women, do you think your clothes have influenced the direction or success of your life, or the society around you over the years?
You can call it Karma, you can call it the Golden Rule, you can even call it late for dinner, but it will be on your plate eventually.
We usually think of consequences as something negative that happens. And there is truth in that. As mentioned yesterday, a bad and mean-spirited attitude towards life not only makes the present miserable for yourself and others, but you are also more likely to die earlier, much earlier, than someone with a positive attitude.
But it’s also true that there are good consequences. Feeling and acting on the virtues of love, kindness, mercy, compassion, fortitude, perseverance, sympathy, discipline, giving, and more return good consequences.
I am not saying life is fair and if you are ‘nice’, only nice things will happen to you. That is not true. But if you are ‘nice’ then no matter WHAT happens to you, you always get to be with a nice person. You always get to have that love, kindness and caring inside yourself. That’s a pretty good consequence to your behavior if you ask me.
I heard a report about aging today in which they discussed a survey and follow up that was done on people in their 50s. Here is just a bit of that report by Dr. Mark Lachs, a gerontologist:
My colleague Becca Levy, a professor of epidemiology and psychology at the Yale School of Public Health, has studied the longevity of people in their 50s as a function of their perceptions about aging.
She asked if they agreed with statements like, “Things keep getting worse as I get older,” and, “As you get older you are less useful.” Even after she controlled for their medical conditions, subjects who agreed with ideas like these died on average 7 1/2 years sooner than their glass-half-full counterparts.
The rest of the report had one overarching conclusion. The people who lived the longest AND were the happiest, were those who were able to bounce back from stress. It’s what they called ‘adaptive competence’.
Are you able to recover and move on from stress or does it stay with you?
Do you hold onto slights, hurts, betrayals, setbacks, mistakes and never let them go?
Do you fret all the time about ‘what if’?
Are you still pissed off that you don’t have an eraser?
Well, here we are, 39 years worth of drawings later, at the end of the Sketchbook History Tour. Â I started posting this tour on July, 18th, 2010, almost 9 months ago. Â We have gone all the way from the crude drawings of an adolescent 17 year old to the crude drawings of a 56 year old. Â I hope you enjoyed the journey as much as I did!
The Sketchbook History Tour is almost to the present. Â Next week we will be at 2011 and shortly after that I will have a whole new Sunday project!
I like drawing the piano player at church. Â She is angular, still, colorful and contrasting. The first 2 are from my small sketchbook of 2009-2010. Â It is inside a soft leather/suede cover that has slots for colored pencils. It even has a pencil sharpener attached to it. The last 2 are from my larger sketchbook from 2008-2010.
I like horse racing, even though I have barely ever gone to the track. When I was a kid my Uncle Bunny (born on Easter, thus the name) was a harness racer at the Del Mar Racetrack just north of San Diego. Even though I don’t remember it now, we would go out there and watch him practice once in a while.
The most fun I ever had at the track was in 2008 when we visited Del Mar, California for my dad’s 90th birthday party. We rented a house on the beach in Del Mar that just happened to be walking distance to the track. The opening day fell while we were there. It has a great reputation as being a fantastic people watching spot on opening day. A lot of crazy outfits, especially women’s hats! We indulged and went to it.
We didn’t have much horse sense while wagering, but it didn’t matter, it was great fun.
Here are a few pics of that day.
This woman’s hat definitely felt like it had been collected
and made in a fairy meadow by little gnomes and elves.
Her voice and manner matched that feeling as well.
Caitlin tries her hand at hat posing.
The horses do a big parade into the track with hundreds of people at the
fence watching and judging their look to see if they might win the race.
I won the first race I betted on, then none others.
And finally, I have to tell the story of the day. As some of you might know, I like taking photos of backs, especially if they have interesting tattoos on them. As we walked to the track that day this woman was walking in front of us. I saw her little back tattoo and when we caught up with her I tapped her on the shoulder and asked her if I could take a photo of her tattoo. She said of course and turned to face me. While I was expecting to take a photo of the tattoo on her back, the one on her front made me, my wife and my daughters drop our jaw. Take a look below.
Her back tattoo, the one I saw and wanted to photograph.
And here is the one we saw when she turned around!
This is definitely one of the all time most original
and unique tattoos I have ever seen.
When I was young both my parents drank to excess frequently. Fueled more often than not by alcohol, there would be massive arguments with ranting, screaming, stomping, door slamming, etc.
I used what power I had to escape into my room, my headphones, my car and other people’s houses. But eventually my power was in standing up to my parents, as did my sister. It didn’t cause them to make some grand transformation (that took a major catastrophe). But it wasn’t about us changing them. It was about us changing our response to them. We took hold of the power to state what we felt. It took a lot of courage for us both to do it, but we did.
I also had the power to move away, which I did. The post yesterday showed the miles I moved to go to various schools. They were all far away from my parents. I didn’t hate my parents, I just didn’t want to be around that dynamic if I could help it. That was my way of exercising my power.
That is the thing about power. You don’t just take it and then always have it. You have to take it and implement it again and again and again. You have to be constantly reminded that it is yours for the taking. But first you have to know you have it.
The catastrophe I mentioned? My mother having a brain hemorrhage and spending 6 months in the hospital and another 3 months in an alcohol rehabilitation facility after that. That, along with me being blown up in a boat explosion and almost dying during that same time, jolted my family out of many of those habits.
From that moment on they took the power they didn’t know they had and changed their lives. My mother and father both quit drinking. My father reduced his anger level dramatically. And best of all they were able to be much better parents, especially for my younger sister, who was only 9 years old when all that went down.
Have you ever had a child leave home? This is what my parents witnessed when I left home.
714 miles away to college: FAIL
909 miles away to another college: FAIL
3,084 miles to yet another college: SUCCESS
2,405 miles to graduate school: FAIL
2,435 miles to another graduate school: SUCCESS
And that was just the first decade after high school. What I gathered in education, wisdom, friendships, experiences and love were more than worth the failures that came upon me, whether of my own doing or due to circumstances beyond my control. And my parent’s knew that would be the case.
Now, this is what I have witnessed as a parent myself.
My first daughter went 1,282 miles
My second daughter went 1,077 miles
My third daughter went 1,726 miles
My fourth daughter went 356 miles
And that was just their first move away from home. Most of them have moved many more times over many more miles since then. They have had their share of failures and successes as well.
I am obviously not one to tell my offspring to not take risks. But don’t think a mistaken thought here, I worry over what is happening to them, whether they are having successes or failures and how I might be able to help them, no matter the distance. But I also know, just as my parents did, that if they are to continue to become the strong, wise and joyful women I see them becoming, then they have to go down the path of risk.
Risk: It’s the only way to become who you want to become.
Whether it’s religion, governing, corporate life, science, academia, war or any other area where people have their livelihood at stake, truth and understanding can often be shunted aside.
The need to protect what one has is great and it can be a noble thing. But, when you are willing to sacrifice understanding true evidence that comes before you, in the name of protecting your little bit of turf, then something dangerous can happen.
People can rationalize any falsehood and avoid any truth when they have great fear.
Tornado #4 by The Napkin Dad
My TornadoesThe Napkin Dad
ME, IN A TORNADO by The Napkin Dad
