Our daughter has an expression that’s well known in the family. Her left eyebrow goes up, she smiles a quick little tight smile, and her nose twitches. She’s done that ever since she was an infant. It’s a signal that she’s going to make something happen. Kris is a biker chick, a lacy lady, a blue jeans babe, a proud mother of three great kids, and a talented artist. She’s the kind of daughter who makes a guy hope he really is something like she thinks he is. And she’s my Lady Wonder Wench’s best friend.
Kris lives in Massachusetts, and we live in Pennsylvania. So we don’t get to see her nearly as often as we’d like. So when she said she was coming for a visit, it brought a “small drop of sunshine into our otherwise drab existence.”
Kris looks at life… differently. Like most artists, she marches to a different accordion player. And when she’s on the march…do yourself a favor…get out of her way. Kris is such a talented artist that she’s been able to support herself and her three kids by painting murals in business and homes. And she decided that our bathroom needed a make over.
She arrived after a seven hour drive, dressed in her painting overalls and wearing paint covered sneakers…ready for business. We wanted to take her to dinner, and enjoy some comfortable conversation. But she said, “I’d really like it if you’d order out for some pizza…because I’ve got work to do.” I said, “But Honey”…and her left eyebrow went up, she smiled that quick little Krissy smile, her nose twitched, and she marched off into the bathroom…and started tearing wallpaper. As you may have noticed, you can’t just tear a little wallpaper. Once you start, you’ve got to keep going. And she did.
That accordion player who makes her march must have been pumping pretty fast. She painted a beautifully smooth wall… and I said, “That’s great honey…now let’s go to a nice restaurant.” Her left eyebrow went up, and I didn’t even wait for the smile and the nose twitch. I just called on my magnificent knowledge of the English language…and shut up.
After she got the walls all smooth, she painted them to look like bricks are showing through the plaster. Since it’s a bathroom, that gives a whole new meaning to the old saying…”It’s time to hit the bricks”…which makes more sense than saying “I’m going to the bathroom” anyway. Because most of the time you go in there, you’re…commoding, not bathing.
Then she painted a window looking out onto a beach scene. It’s beautiful. It makes you want to drop your towel, and run into the warm ocean…crunching the soft sand under your feet, and grabbing big breaths of salty air. But don’t try it. You’d get…a face full of plaster.
Dick’s Details Quiz. All answers are in the current podcast.
1- Why are bananas similar to politicians ?
2- Who’s more critical…husbands or wives ?
3- Why is the Astro’s shortstop constantly checking his zipper ?
Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.
There’s something sexy about artists. Maybe it’s because they’re so different from most of us. There’s a story about that in the Night Connections 2 personal audio cd. It’s called, Painting, Pottery, and Passion. That wife was listening with her heart…and she heard such a terrible silence. But she knew it would probably happen. So why did she do that…risk losing both her husband and a friend ? People do that you know. Probably…even people you know.
Painting, Pottery, and Passion is from the Night Connections 2 personal audio cd. If you like it, you can just keep the podcast. Or if you want a fresh copy, just download it from the Night Connections 2 icon on the home page.
I guess you can tell I’m a little proud of our daughter Kris. Kris the artist. Artists are magicians. When I stand there in my brick commode room, looking out the magic window she painted on the wall, I can feel the soft sand, and the ocean breeze, I can hear the wind slipping past the wings of the gulls. And for just a wonderful moment, I feel like the 19 year old lifeguard I once was…standing on the beach with my arms folded, waiting for my hopes and dreams to unfold…all those years ago.
Kris didn’t go to school to learn how to be an artist. She was born an artist. A magician. Ever since she was an infant, when her left eyebrow went up, and she smiled that quick little tight smile, and her nose twitched, some kind of magic happened. And maybe it will again. From now on, every time I hit the bricks, it will have another chance to turn me into something like the father I know she thinks I am.
We are all so proud of our kids. It was not that long ago that we were all kids listening to Dick on 1030 on our am radios. No cell phones, no ipods, no computers, no blackberries, no email. Just us and our am radios.