Sweet Caroline has arrived!

Actually she arrived some weeks back. And I could not be happier for The List Maker and The Red Hot Mamma! Sure this is a blog about the painting I completed for their baby’s room, and you can see the completed project just right here. But this blog in particular is about one of those art forms you don’t find in a gallery or museum. We see it all around us-it’s the kind of art that is small and often silent while at the same time LOUD and IN YOUR FACE! It’s the kind of art that invites, almost necessitates you interact.

I remember the first time I interacted with The RHM. TK and I were co-leading a cultural class. My part of the class was teaching multi-cultural cooking lessons. At the end of the first class I gave a “chop, slice and dice” home work assignment. The very next week she arrived at class proudly displaying her home work-complete. Three very nicely prepared bell peppers. “A-Plus for Cindy” I said (she was one of just a couple who actually did the home work) and we’ve been friends ever since. Really? She just chopped up, excuse me sliced up some produce and that made you friends? Really? Well…yes. But to me it was more than that. If you are not a John Travolta fan please just indulge me for a moment and read along anyway. (By the way, I am going to need a written explanation from anyone reading this blog who considers him/herself NOT a fan of John Travolta) Let me set this clip up for you. The film Phenomenon-George (John Travolta) is in love with Lace (Kyra Sedgwick) who for a multitude of reasons, will not allow George to get close. Lace is a crafts person and makes chairs-she puts her heart and soul into her work. George buys multiple chairs (he does not need)

This monologue explains the significance of “buying chairs” which could also be called “slicing vegetables”.

Bane is explaining to the Doc that his girl, Lisa has left him (AGAIN)

Doc: Really? Now George has a love at his side and she is sticking with him. You know why? Because he bought her chairs. That's pretty smart to me. You ever buy Lisa's chairs?

Doc: Every woman has her chair, something she needs to put herself into, Banes. You ever figure out what Lisa's chairs were and buy 'em?

It’s amazingly simple, yet I don’t always do it. The best practice for the art of love, romantic love AND platonic love, is to invest. Invest in people. Find out what matters to another person and extend a little effort to show your support of that venture. BUY THE CHAIRS! It’s what Rich and Cindy were doing when they showed up at that second cultural class with their “home work completed” It’s what they did last summer when we had an idea to create a coffee shop on Wednesday nights. The list maker came strait from work and began serving coffee, RHM, did the same. In October when the crazy idea for an art auction to raise money for my orphans in Kenya was presented---Here they were again, “buying chairs” making item donations for the auction and buying art for this sweet baby’s room. I realize it may sound as if I have a connection with these people because they have helped with so many projects. I suppose one could draw that assumption. It’s true, they have participated in many of the things which I have passion. That in its self deserves a giant thank you. To me, their support of my little projects is less about the “work” they have done-and more about the investments they have made. It challenges me in a way I find difficult to understand.

While painting the dots on the wall in Caroline’s room, I had conversation with The RHM, part of the conversation turned to the loss of an amazing friend and we shared the same sentiments-with this exception. I expressed my regrets having not verbalized my love and appreciation for him while he was here. She said something about the list maker at that point and it inspired this whole blog. She said something like this “Now The List Maker, he doesn’t do that- He believes in telling people how he feels. What they mean to him, that he loves them. He lives that way-no regrets now.”

See what I mean? There is an art form to that way of living. Living Love to the people around you. I love an analogy so… saying “I love you” is like taking a stroll thru your favorite gallery-but the art of really LIVING OUT “I love you” involves that interaction I spoke of before, it involves the buying of chairs.