The four bros and I like to create. We create pictures, designs, programs of all kinds; we create classes, Christmas and birthday gifts.
Sometimes we just sketch because it feels good to do it. My mother, who had a degree in Grapho-Analysis, learned that every single person is creative, but only a few are sensitive. I suppose if you put the two together and you were both highly sensitive and creative, this would make you Michelangelo or Leonardo.
I started sketching in grade school when my brother taught me things like drawing a straight line, a circle, and different triangles. Then I would take those images and make something else out of them. Music became more interesting for a time, I veered away from what my brother did so well.
1986 – 1994: Enter a series of major surgeries on my legs and many months of a wheel chair, crutches and then learning to walk again. To stay motivated and to rest, I read every book I could find; and when that got boring, number three bro told me I wanted to learn to sketch.
He handed me a sketchpad, and a number two lead pencil. I began to draw the likeness of a person. First few lines were good, and then something went astray. It was my pencil! I started to quit, and Nate stopped my hand and took the pencil.
He said, “You think that something is wrong with your drawing… That you’ve made a mistake. It doesn’t look like what you see in your mind.”
I agreed.
He went on to say, “Now is the time to become an artist. You feel that what you have made is not right yet. Create from your misstep. Create something beautiful out of it.”
He gave me back my pencil… “Make the misstep into something new. Be the artist that I know you are.”
I still have that piece of art. While I have drawn other things since that afternoon, the first one means more to me. It is in essence, a son who reminded his mother not to give up… not to quit. And, it would have been easy to quit in those days. I lost the use of my legs twice within the space of five years, and had to learn to walk again.
The second time (stuck in a wheel chair), I was still sketching and reading and writing, but I was in need of getting out of the house. It was not easy for me to leave because of the wheel chair, and serious cabin fever had set in! So Hubby, who has won every medal and award offered by the National Rifle Association, set up a shooting range for me. (We lived on a very large property at that time.) He wheeled me outside, gave me some ammo, and told me to practice target shooting. He taught me the basics and I took it from there. I saw learning to shoot as another sort of artistic endeavor… Properly holding the rifle, looking through the site, squeezing the trigger gently, and believing that I would hit the target. I would say to myself every time I aimed, “Hit the target.” As a musician, I understand practice. It IS what you practice in life, that makes you more than good; it makes you excellent. As I became a better and better shot, “Hit the target” mingled itself with “Walk again.”
I am no quitter. I am a fighter. I fight for those around me and when necessary, I fight for myself. I wanted to walk again. I felt I needed to walk again. So I fought for it by doing therapy four to five times a day, drawing beautiful pictures, and becoming an excellent shot. “Become the artist, Mom, and create something beautiful.”
I believe we are made in the image of God. And this thing about evolving? Well maybe it’s not quite that way… What if God took up His “tools” and began with the early man, decided there was a misstep, became the ultimate artist, and then created something more beautiful out of it: US! And, who’s to say that God is done with his art work yet? Maybe we are still a work in progress. My legs are by not means perfect. (I am still doing therapy through yoga every day.) And, this year I had another accident (to the knee) which is healing well with constant consideration. My legs are a miracle that I, and many others, fought to turn back into something beautiful and functional, from the terrible mess they once were.
“Become the artist, and create something beautiful.” Every day, Nate… I won’t forget. Every day of my life!
May you also find the creativity that is you, and make something beautiful of our life!
Best… Carolyn Thomas Temple