I used to think, and often said, that my parents didn’t like my friends.

I sort of get it now. I admired the kids who were different from me. The ones who did and said dramatic things. They swore and smoked. They didn’t inherit conservative religious views from their parents, or in some cases, they rejected them.

One of these friends ran away from home, and I was called into the principal’s office because I was one of her few friends, and I had recently been seen talking to her.

I went out with my parents and her parents to look for her. We found some of her belongings in a wooded area, but we didn’t find her. She had cut her long hair off. Sometime during the next week she was found, and ended up in a car with my mother in our driveway, where mom suggested she might need a good spanking, and she told my mother to go to hell.

Her dad had been a Boy Scout leader, and she was used to camping. I was a bit envious because our family never went camping.

Years later, I lived with that family for a while, and then I understood why she had run away.

The last time I remember seeing her father, I think I got out of his car at a stop sign. It’s all a blur, but I think we were helping someone move something in winter. I just knew I wanted to get away, and I did.

I thought of several of my friends and relatives as rebellious. Now I just think they were normal people who expressed themselves in ways I didn’t dare to, and I admired them for it.

I was impressed by what I thought of as shocking behavior. My mom probably knew this. I never wanted to get into trouble, but I wanted to be interesting.

A lot of what I heard in church, or read in the Bible didn’t make sense to me. Naturally I had a lot of doubts. But we believed we had all the right answers, so if I had doubts, I was supposed to just accept what I was told. I was supposed to have faith. When it came to anything outside of our accepted doctrine, we were supposed to study it carefully and then reject it… or simply reject it right from the start. The one exception was conservative evangelical fundamentalism. That, we were to accept without question, whether it made any sense or not… whether it was kind or not.

One day I asked my mom how we could know that the Bible was true, and that Jesus really was who he said he was. She told me that she just knew it in her heart. She said she knew it so strongly that she didn’t have any doubt. I don’t have that kind of faith. So I asked her about Muslim suicide bombers. They believe in their religion enough to die. Was her faith stronger than theirs?

I asked this question at a youth retreat during my senior year of high school, and all the other kids gasped. I wasn’t trying to be difficult. I struggled with doubt, and I wondered what was wrong with me that I couldn’t just believe what I was told.

Probably, my doubts came from it being all made up, just one of thousands of supernatural myths, the followers of each believing theirs is the right one.

I’m not trying to convince anyone to agree with me, but just to think for yourself.

Somebody recently asked me who I would be without kids. It’s an interesting question, because I tend to think of myself primarily as a parent. The nursing, painting, writing, photography, performing weddings and all the other things I do are in support of my family. I will never be without kids, even though my kids are now adults. I was changed forever when I became a parent.

At the same time, I was painting long before I had kids.

I don’t want to reinvent myself, but here is another example of this retrogenesis that I’ve been noticing since early summer. It’s the opposite of reinventing when you discover something from your past resurfacing.

I don’t want to reinvent myself, I want to embrace who I already am at my core.

As my kids get older (and I get older, too), I find myself returning to things from much earlier in my life.

If I return to drawing the way I did in Jr. High, I do it with the addition of everything I have learned and experienced in the decades between then and now.

If I return to my childhood bedroom, I see it through the layers of time that has passed since I lived there.

It’s the same place, but it is not the same. It is like visiting the ruins of Cair Paravel, and finding the knight from your old chess set.

I’ve dreamed of that place. I’ve strained to remember as many details as I could. Going back fifty years later, I found that I remembered it well, though the house and I have aged.

I went by Brabb Cemetery where Elisha and Mary were laid to rest almost 150 years ago. I imagine them returning to the farm and walking through the same rooms, as I did. What stories might they tell… how the house and the world have changed since their time.

When I was young, I didn’t think of history. Maybe that is because I didn’t have much history of my own. I was interested in the Brady Bunch, Wizzzers and playing with my friends. I never guessed that one day I would cherish those days. I would not have thought it would take me 50 years to loosen my grip… that I would cling so tightly for so long. I don’t need to. It is in the fiber of my being.

Maybe it is time to loosen my grip on a lot of things.

I think of people I have known. Friends I have lost touch with, or maybe connected with briefly via social media. We never had a falling out, but at some point one of us took an exit ramp and followed the highway in a different direction. Now we are strangers who remember a brief time together.

It can be fun to reminisce, but I don’t need to be reminded of how goofy… how crazy I was. I was compensating. I was insecure and hyperactive. I was unfocused. That’s why I acted that way. I was imaginative and sensitive. I’m sorry I was obnoxious.

The same person asked me what I’m going to do different now.

I still want to help people, but I can’t save the world. I still want to entertain, but I’m not happy-go-lucky. That’s how my mom described me in a questionnaire before I went off to summer camp in fourth or fifth grade. I’m not the loudest kid on the church bus anymore.

When I write or paint, I glean information from the electrical impulses that have entered my brain. Unless there was something installed before my life experiences, that is all I have to go on. I extrapolate meaning. I move the puzzle pieces around.

My brain doesn’t see. It resides in the darkness, enclosed in my skull. It receives electrical impulses from my eye, and usually believes what my eye tells it. It interprets what my ears strain to pick up, and for me, this is a somewhat less reliable source of information. The nerve endings in my skin help me deduce the physical nature of objects. My olfactory nerve and gustatory system give me clues through smell and taste. Based on these impulses, my brain builds an interpretation of the world around me.

I was recently told that my brain hallucinates my reality through this information.

When I paint, I select from the colors I find on the shelf in my studio. I mix the paints together, and I try many combinations of brushstrokes. The supplies are limited, yet the possible combinations are infinite.

I don’t have a favorite color. Every color is important both in its own right and also for its role in combining to make other colors and shades.

For a while, people thought yellow was my favorite color, and yes, I was obsessed with it. Still, it was not my favorite. For a while, it was my signature color. Here’s what happened:

I decided to buy a bike. For me, style is sometimes more important than function. I wanted something like the bike I had as a kid. Fat tires, single speed, coaster brakes, saddle seat, full fenders. The owner of the bike shop said he didn’t have anything like that, but I found one in his catalogue. The Atlas bike.

Oh, that’s more of an industrial bike.

He said those were heavy duty and usually used as rental bikes. Sounded perfect to me.

They only come in one color. Safety yellow.

I bought the bike, and had him add big baskets on the sides, and a chrome headlight. I felt like Pee Wee Herman. Then I got a matching yellow helmet and a yellow bell. That’s how my yellow phase began. I even bought a yellow car.

That bike was fun and stylish, but it was heavy, and I couldn’t ride it up the hill from town to my house.

In the early 1990’s, I went through my red chapter. That’s because I ran a coffee shop and art gallery out of a red caboose.

In the late 1980’s, I had my black and white period.

I don’t have a favorite color. I like magenta but I dislike mauve. I don’t like green for cars, and rarely wear green. I use it a lot when I paint trees.

People regard me as a creative person because I paint and exhibit my work in various locations around my small town. I have done a few pieces of public art as well. I believe I am a creative person because I feel a drive to express myself creatively.

My art has changed a lot over the years, and continues to evolve as I go. Sometimes I look at my older pieces and cringe, and sometimes I see an older piece that feels very satisfying. We can’t change the past, and I don’t know if I would if I could. I definitely want to set myself up for a future that is open to adaptation. I want to take risks.

By creating with fluidity and flexibility, I can learn from every brushstroke. I can transform so slowly that it is imperceptible from one day to the next. Year to year, or decade to decade, there will be innovation. I don’t want to reinvent myself. I want to be me, but with a freshness that is compelling.

I often paint over old work, or sections of it. As long as I have it, it is never done.

Lines can be erased.

It’s not always easy to realize my vision. Sometimes it is too easy. I question myself when I focus on a result or a reaction, when I am hesitant, when I am afraid of messing it up. That’s when I need to loosen up, or maybe go do something else for a while.

Sometimes enlightenment comes in a casual comment. It comes from mundane things, and from unsuspecting delivery people. Sometimes the right word or phrase hits me at just the right time.

My brothers have a unique ability to inspire me, because our upbringing was similar and yet our impressions and responses are so different. I can get a new perspective on myself from them, and every one of them is articulate and reflective.

I can’t trust my own memories. They are colored and flavored.

I don’t think I have been accurate in assessing my own history. I’ve tried to measure up to a philosophy which was chosen and taught by imperfect people. I’ve amended that constitution where it did not ring true for me or speak to my mission in life. Instead, I’ve gone with my best judgement. I’ve arrived at conclusions that diverge from my early teaching.

It is validating to learn that I am not the only one. That the problem was not all with me.

The grid that I layered over my own thoughts and experience only masked my view of the world and my self identity.

The transparency was rigid, and because it didn’t line up, I believed I was not good enough.

By peeling away the unwanted layer, or wiping away the dry erase lines (I’m picturing an overhead projector), I am free to see my experience without the unwanted, unrealistic, unkind expectations that were superimposed against my will.

I don’t try to convey my emotions through my art. Emotions change all the time. They are my weather. I want to convey my climate.

I’m sure my emotions sneak into my art or my writing, but if I am feeling too strong of an emotion, I most likely won’t be creating. My energy will be distracted by the experience of intense sadness, anger or even joy. That’s the living that I may write or paint about later.

Emotion is very different from creative energy. I think emotion can be influenced by external sources, but creative energy comes from within.

The flurry of disappointment, the shadow of grief, unbridled joy have to go through the filters and join with everything else I have felt in order to come out again as creative expression. They have to seep through the layers and contribute to the stalactites that hang in the cavern of my skull. You see, not everything sticks. Not everything is remembered. Even less is remembered accurately.

I can’t guarantee facts. I’ll give you my version of things.

Inspiration finds me. I rarely go looking for it. There are times when I grab my camera and go for a drive looking for something to photograph, but that’s not what I call inspiration.

Inspiration seems to come from anywhere. It doesn’t often come to me from the big events of life. Those are the weather. When I feel something long enough that it becomes a part of me, it withstands the emotion. Then one day, maybe several decades later, it comes bubbling up with quiet significance. I can look at it with comfort, whether it caused me happiness or hurt. I can come to terms with it. I can own it and defuse it or celebrate it.