Sunday, January 15, 2012

The Best Day Ever

In this country we have a whole industry devoted to “The Best Day Ever” it’s called the Bridal Consultant and they can clean out the father of the bride faster than an IRS audit.

But they do make for wonderful memories, those beautiful flowers, lovely gowns, fantastic settings, and horrible brides’ maid dresses.

There is no corresponding career path for folks who want to make men have that magical experience, well there is the stripper at the Bachelor party, but we’d probably be better off just to skip that and move on.

Okay there is the moment in every boy’s life when he sees the ONE for the first time, that body, that look, that grace, there’s just no substitute for the first time a boy see the car of his dreams.

Kids get to have this experience all of the time and we as adults tend to ignore their enthusiasm, “They’re just kids, what do they know?” But they do know, they get excited by bunnies and peacocks, rainbows, Barney and ice cream and that isn’t something we should discount. There is plenty of time for them to become cynical.

Wait until they have to vote… There’s a Texas politician turned humorist which may strike you as strange the rest of the country taking Texas politicians as pretty funny guys no matter what they call themselves, but it’s true, Jim Hightower turned in his hat and became a writer of funnies and did the rest of the state a big favor. One of the books he wrote in his new life as a humorist is called, “If God had wanted us to vote, he’d have given us candidates!”

Didn’t seem as funny ten years ago when it was first on the shelves, but now…

Anyway, the best day ever gets away from most adults. We’re so serious. You don’t believe that, just ask an artist to tell you about their work, within the first ten seconds your eyes will roll back into your head and you will loose the will to live. And heaven help the artist who says, “I don’t really know what I’m doing, I just kinda go with the flow.”
 
Quick get back there’s going to be a whole Special High Intensity Training storm of brick bats and jeers cause the one thing an artist cannot abide is someone who is doing better than they are at creative stuff, selling more and not taking it seriously. Go on fess up, you might as well come out in favor of free love and those funny smokes that they sell at the Herb shops.

And more than likely a person who doesn’t take themselves all that seriously will do better cause they won’t have lost that sense of wonder which allows kids to spend a whole day chasing and being chased by an Emu and thinking it really is the best day ever.

Can we talk? Would you even notice if you happened to have the best day ever? I mean just what makes a day, any day, the best day ever? Did you create something special? Did you meet someone special? Did you win a prize, get a big check, secure a valuable commission? What makes a day the best day ever if you aren’t ten?

Even more important are you ready for the best day ever?

Whaddya mean ready? I’m ready it just that that day keeps skipping right over me.

No, it doesn’t and being ready means keeping your heart and soul open to all of the wonderment that ten year olds see and adults don’t. It means having the right tools at hand so when you get the best day ever you can latch onto it with both hands clinging by tooth and toenail like a man going over the falls and not letting go until you figure out a way to capture, hold, freeze that day.

Do you carry a sketchbook with you? What about a camera? I know, I know you’re a painter and never stoop to taking photographs, so I hope you are fast cause around here, at this time of the year, things can change in a blink and if you aren’t ready that very moment, it’s gone.

You know the spring show is coming up at the Southern Coos Hospital. Yes, those nice folks, Ava Richey, Susan Lehman and Victoria Tierney are letting those of us who can comply with their objectives hang art, in a public place, for free and all we have to do is read the requirements and get it ready, like for their Spring show, “Weather report”.

I am ready I just have to decide which image I want to enter. How did I do that? It wasn’t hard, in fact I was doing something else entirely and just happened to be coming home when it happened, I had the best day ever!



Yeah that’s what I thought, it don’t get much better than that…



Or does it?



Could this be the one?



Too cool, maybe something with brighter colors…



Then again maybe the cool shades were the one that will make the mood just right, it is supposed to be a weather thingy…



You see I hadn’t expected to have the best day ever; I was coming home from an artist’s reception, minding my own business when there on the Bar God worked his wonders with light and shadow. And I happened to have a camera.

You can say its cheating and maybe it is, taking a slice of time with a camera seems pretty easy, you point and shoot and let the camera do all of the work. But knowing where to point and when to shoot takes a little bit of experience and most of all you have to have the camera with you.

You see this time my best day ever happened when I was ready and now I get to share it with you.

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