One day last week Jack came home with this drawing, done independently at school. It looked familiar. I asked him about it, and he told me those are bombs and eggs and a mechanachick. A what? "From that book," he told me.
This book. Poor farmer's homestead is destroyed by a tornado, leaving a pile of metal rubble. From that pile of rubble he constructs a whole new farm of Mechanimals.
Spot the mechanachick that Jack drew in such peril? "I didn't get it right," he said. "I forgot the buttons."
He came home with these in his backpack last week, too. Reproductions of Van Gogh's Starry Night and Sunflowers.
And just this past week, a friend of mine posted something on fb that relates.
I wonder where Jack will take this? I was surprised to see such artistry from my staunchly unartistic child. The Van Gogh reproductions are school work, so they don't really count. But the Mechanachick... he did that on his own. How does that speak to his soul in a way Van Gogh doesn't?
Yoram used to say "There's nothing new under the sun." I struggled with that awhile and resolved it by deciding that through my lens it becomes new. That's authenticity, not originality. I used to strive for originality but lately I've been thinking more about connection. If something speaks to my soul, where are the other souls to which it speaks? Can I find them through work of my own? Perhaps, but that work must be authentic.
For someone who spent 37 years trying to please others it's difficult learning how to please myself.
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