He had a dream that we would someday allow everyone to have their own dream. Silly or profound, understood or not, it doesn’t matter. What matters is being free to dream it.
The Dream of a Different Martin
A dream of a brightly colored self and a matching kite smiling in the wind, yes.
A dream of floating above a canyon, far above the dangerous water, yes.
A dream of radio and rock and roll, yes.
A dream of green across the sky, yes.
A dream of a serenading snake, yes.
A dream of a cat as important as the sun, yes.
A dream of a sailboat waiting for you to make it move, yes.
I’ve been out of touch the past week due to a family emergency in California. I took photos, mostly family oriented pics, but only was able to find time to do one drawing while I was there and that was in the airline terminal as I was leaving. I drew it on a Starbucks napkin.
Mrs. Bowen
She sat across from me in the waiting area. We were both almost 2 hours early. We had seen each other in the check in line and said hello again as I sat down. She was headed back to Salt Lake City after visiting her husband who was in the Bay Area on work. She was an oil painter and showed me her paintings on her iPhone. I showed her my sketchbook and photos/drawings in my iPhone as well. I asked if I could draw her and she was kind enough to allow it. She had expressive eyes and lines.
I finished the line drawing portion and as I was starting to use my colored markers a large contingent of Mormon missionaries going home to Utah after 2 years of mission work sat down near us. She went over to talk to some of them. I showed the drawing to her when she got back, took her picture with it and she took pictures as well and we all got on the plane.
Mrs. Bowen
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Small Hands
I ended up sitting next to one of the missionaries. He had the smallest hands of any adult man I have ever met. We talked Jesus and religion. It was interesting. He gave me a Book of Mormon. I didn’t draw him but I wanted to, just didn’t find the right opportunity.
Art lived in a museum. Many people touched her. Even the guards would touch her when no one was looking. She liked being touched. A few people thought she was stupid or that she was ugly. Some thought she was old looking. Some thought her lips were too big while others thought they were too small. Some felt sorry for her, others ignored her. Some wanted to know what she was made of. A few wondered how she got there. But most thought she was very beautiful and almost everyone took a photo of her.
Chapter Two
One lady used to come and stare at her every Friday afternoon. Sometimes the lady would cry. Art didn’t understand that but she liked the lady a lot. The lady looked like her, which Art thought was odd. Her hair was longer, and had some gray in it, and she had more wrinkles than Art did, but she had the same pinkish skin color and the same red lips, blue eyes and strong eyebrows. Art thought she was very beautiful.
Chapter Three
At one point the lady disappeared for many weeks. Art wondered where she had gone, wishing she had legs so she could go find her. Finally, one day the lady came back, this time in a wheel chair. She had a scarf around her head and her skin had changed color. She cried a lot that day. Art didn’t know what it was all about but she was very sad as well. She didn’t see her again after that.
Chapter Four
About a year after the lady’s last visit a new person started to come to see her regularly. This was a young girl, probably no more than 15 years old. Art didn’t know who she was but she also looked a lot like Art, and she liked that. The girl started coming by on Saturday mornings with a bright pink sketchbook. She would sit cross-legged on the floor in front of Art and draw her again and again. When she first started coming to visit she cried just like the lady did. But after a while she no longer cried. She would smile a lot though. Her drawings got better and better. Sometimes Art thought the drawings looked like her and other times she thought they looked more like the lady who used to visit. The young girl did this for many years.
Time passed and Art continued to enjoy the company of many people. She liked where she was and never complained but her young friend had stopped visiting many years before and sometimes she missed her. She often wondered what happened to the lady and the young girl.
Chapter Five
One day, many years later, workers in the museum came into the room where Art lived and took down all the paintings in the room. It was very lonely for a few days but then they started bringing in new paintings. All the paintings were wrapped so she didn’t know anything about them but she was hopeful they would be as friendly as the old paintings had been. Finally a few days later the workers took off the wrappings. Art couldn’t believe her eyes. All the paintings were of her.
Chapter 6
That very same night a lot of people came into the museum and walked around looking at all the new paintings. They also looked at Art a lot. They talked about how much the paintings looked like Art. They talked about how beautiful and meaningful Art was. Art was happy for all the attention.
It was very loud with everyone talking at the same time until all of a sudden a beautiful woman walked in the room. Everyone stopped talking and looked her way. The woman smiled a big smile and waved at everyone. She stopped right in front of Art and stared at her. Art stared back. It was the young girl in front of her, all grown up. But it also seemed to be the lady who used to come visit. They had the same blue eyes, red lips, pinkish skin and strong brows. The beautiful woman leaned forward and kissed Art on the cheek. She held the kiss for a moment, leaned close to Art’s ear and whispered, “Thank you Art, you saved my life. I love you”. Then the beautiful woman straightened up, turned around to face the crowd and said, “Thank you for coming to see my Art. I hope you love it as much as I do.”
It was a good decision to publish a drawing about poor decisions.
Teenagers are Dumb, Adults are Dumber
As most of the US knows and feels, it’s been brutal cold all over the eastern 2/3rds of the country. We are lucky here in Oklahoma, the cold is not nearly as bad as north and east of us. Still, it’s cold enough (12 degrees this AM) that parents are fighting with their teenage kids about how to dress to go outdoors.
I went to Wal-Mart yesterday. In cold weather it’s fun to make a game of finding the most inappropriately dressed person. Yesterday, when it was all of 14 degrees with a strong wind that person was a teenage girl walking out of the store in a simple long sleeve t-shirt and shorts. Her shoes were Tom’s type slip-on canvas shoes. No socks. She was the winner UNTIL a second later I spotted her father walking behind her. He was in a t-shirt and shorts. It wasn’t hard to figure out where she got her common sense and attitude of preparedness. Did they make it home ok? Probably so. His poor decision for himself and his daughter (yes, he was responsible for how she dressed) probably did not end poorly. But would they have made it home ok if they had gotten into a wreck on the icy streets, going off into a culvert and disappearing from the road? Maybe not. In which case, that poor decision could have ended badly.
Another Sort of Poor Decision
Being underdressed in the cold is dumb, but there are much worse decisions people make. Decisions with HUGE life altering consequences. But even those don’t have to end poorly. For example, you have unprotected sex with someone and get pregnant, or get them pregnant. That was a poor decision. But that poor decision doesn’t mean the child’s life is doomed. That life (and your life) can be a great one. Your relationship with the father or mother can be good, even if you don’t stay together. You can arrange your lifestyle so the child is raised safe and happy. You can build a life for your family that is positive and good. It might take more work than it would have otherwise, but it can be done.
The Kid at the Bus Stop
If I see someone at the top of a cliff, about to go over, I am going to yell and scream and do whatever I can to stop them. But if they have already fallen off the cliff and are at the bottom, I am not going to yell and scream. I am not going to tell them they shouldn’t have been so close to the edge. I am going to help them up, tend to their wounds and help them recover. Then, and only then, we might have a discussion on how to avoid that cliff in the future.
If you have made poor decisions, resolve to not have them end poorly. If you are a witness to poor decisions others make, do what you can to help them have the end be rich, not poor.
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Drawing by Marty Coleman
Quote by my cool Son-in-Law and father of my granddaughter, Patrick Evans
