So I’m trying this new thing, where either I give a friend of mine an idea, then he draws something then I write, or I take a drawing of his that he already did, and write about it. Here’s the spectacular art.
Copyright Eric Meister 2013
Click on that bad boy to go to his Tumblr and see more artwork so that when he’s famous, you can say “I knew him when…from a blog from that famous writer that I knew back when.” It’s convoluted. Sorry.
This particular drawing reminds me a bit of a quote I read recently as well:
“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.”
― Rumi
Another good friend of mine directed me to some quotes from the English translations of that poet. She thought that it might give me a little insight into someone else who thinks a bit like I do, or I think like him. Whatever.
This little skeleton certainly doesn’t look too upset that he’s not a living person anymore, does he? His expression seems whimsical, and combining that with his stature makes me think that maybe he used to be a little boy. He doesn’t look very sad about previously being a little boy and currently being a skeleton because he’s accepting of the changes going on. He is excited for the new things that change will bring about. He has accepted that sorrow has swept out the house and he is waiting for new things to grow.
That’s why he doesn’t look sad. That’s why he’s waiting with his hand bones on his thigh bones. That’s why he looks so content next to that leaf that seems to contain more sadness in it’s cup-like shape that he does even though he’s no longer living.
How many of us can truly say that? How many of us, still living, with few cares in the world(relatively speaking of course) can say that we’ve accepted the sorrow and are ready for the positive change it has made room for? I certainly can’t.
I am not one to let things go. I have never been the kind of person who lets something like sorrow or anger fill me up and then let it all drain out. I am the kind of man who experiences his emotions deeply, and I try to process them. After that is all done, what is left is a processed, concentrated bit of that emotion. I bottle that concentrated sadness and that concentrated anger and that concentrated fear and I save it. I put a stopper in the bottle, and I label it, and I put it on the shelf. What happens to glass bottles when the shelf gets shaken? They crack and maybe leak a little.
Everyone is created by the events that occurred in their past. We are all formed, sculpted, cast, and forged by the events that make up our lives to this very point. Any time anything happens, it creates a point of divergence where any of the possible outcomes could have resulted in a change to the over product that is us. Some people let these moments flow through them. Some people keep that history in them as scars. Some people flow with those moments. I bottle those moments and their emotions, and when that foundation is shaken later on, some of them begin to seep back out.
It would all be so much simpler if we could let our sorrow sweep us clean for the new things to grow. That takes leaving the doors and windows open for the wind to do the sweeping. It’s hard to leave yourself that open. Can you?
Inkling of Asylum 