For as long as I can remember, there has been a niggling little itch of creativity in me, starting, I think, one day so very long ago. I was perhaps four years old, I was worrying with my new coloring book, trying to stay in the lines of one of the outlined pictures, a puppy dog, I believe.
"Gaw!" I barked, slumping at the dining room table, tears welling, coloring book rumpled in front of me, crayon fisted in my stubby fingers.
"What's wrong?" Dad asked, as he came out of the kitchen where he and mom had been chatting about whatever moms and dads chatted about in those days, while she made dinner.
"I can't stay in the stupid lines," I whined, and then peered up at dad to make sure "stupid" was a swear word I was allowed to use.
"Let me take a look," dad offered. It must have been an okay word.
I stood up and dad took my place at the table. I stood to his side, put my hand on his shoulder and leaned my head on his arm, the way little boys and little girls do.
Dad flipped through the pages, searching for an appropriate candidate picture. He came to a clown holding a bunch of balloons that I had not yet marred with my outside-the-lines failed attempts.
"This one okay?" Dad asked. I nodded; the picture was way too complicated for me to even attempt – too many lines to cross.
With my approval, dad turned to the picture and patiently, methodically, as if he had all the time in the world – perhaps, at that moment, he did – took a red crayon, traced the black outline of the clown's shirt, pressing hard to make a bold red line that covered the black outline and then filled the interior of the trace with a softer, uniform stroke, shading the clown's shirt a lighter red – all with the same crayon! How did he do that? He then focused on another section of the picture, doing the same thing with a different color.
I stood beside him, awestruck, nearly hypnotized, at how his rough welder hands could be so gentle and make such beauty by simply filling in black lines with color. Mom came into the dining room, wiping her hands on her ever-present apron, and joined us. She rested one hand on my shoulder and the other on dad's, and peered over our shoulders to watch dad work.
And it was there, that very moment, perhaps no more than a half hour, that the peace of creativity captured me, made me want it, to capture it for myself and be a part of it, to share it with you, with him, with everybody: "This is for you from me. Love, Dad. [Love, Babba]"
Alas, I have rarely, if ever, been able to capture that simple creativity in just the same way that dad did in that 30 minutes those 60-odd years ago. But as I ponder on it today, it comes to me that perhaps I have found something akin to it in simply living. I once coined a phrase (at least I think I coined it) "Life Art," which meant a life can be a work of art, where each of us, with the help of a cast of thousands, can look back, ponder a bit and say, “This is for you from me.” And so, perhaps this Life Art is my creativity and, just perhaps, some of my stories, poems, drawings, books, and whatnot (I like that word) captures some of my Life Art…or maybe I’m just covering up for not always being able to stay between the lines…
I like that story. It is the kind of story I remember about dad, mom, and my childhood. My good stories make me realize that I had a great childhood. Even though dad left me early, he left me with all the good, the love, the spirit, that was my dad. For that, I am far more fortunate than many whose father lived a lot longer than my father. My father still lives in me and is with me on every trail I take.
Hmm…I guess some trails don’t even need to leave the dining room table.