Coming Full Circle

For 32 years, in my hometown there was an annual silver treasure hunt compliments of a guy I went all the way through high school with. Each week of the contest the newspaper printed a new clue in the form of a riddle and as long as no one found the business card sized medallion the clues kept coming. As many as 60,000+ people took part at its height of popularity and one year it took 17 weeks for someone to solve the puzzle. To win all you needed was a city map and the knowledge that the treasure could be found in a public assessable place within walking distance of bus stops. Here’s an example of a clue: “Perhaps riding a bicycle, perhaps not. But how he got there is important. He knew that, it changed a lot of things. If you are the first one to know, you'll find it. If you look that is. It is near a sign of change.”

Until last night in my dreams, I’ve never taken part in the treasure hunt but I had read the riddles over the years and wondered how anyone could ever find something that small in such a big city with so little to go on. I hadn’t seen any coverage of the contest since January when it was announced there would be no more hunts, and I hadn’t been thinking about high school or my old classmate, so why on earth was my dream life inventing the shadows of two electrical wires that only crossed at high noon where I found the winner's medallion? Why was my deceased husband very much alive in my dream and helping me find the prize? Doesn’t it just bug the heck out of you when you spend half the morning trying to figure out what your subconscious mind or dream life was trying to tell you, if anything at all? Dreams drives me nuts when I can't unravel them.

Today I took my first art lesson in over 40 years. I had to bring some photos of work I’d done way back when and a few drawings that I did this past week so the art instructor could get a gauge of what I need to work on, where I need to start to get back to where I was when I was a serious student of art. Last weekend when I did my “present day” sketches I shocked myself and made some passable, quick-sketch line portraits right out of the gate. I literally had not done anything drawing or painting in decades. The Professor must have agreed with my passable assessment because he said my drawing "doesn’t need work" so he started right out teaching me the ins and outs of working with Prismacolor pencils, the media we had determined when I set up the classes that I would use. They aren’t as messy as using oils---my first love---but I plan to work my way up to oils again. I just don’t have a place in the house right now to make into a designated studio and I’m getting too old to wait until I do before attempting to return to my roots.

The only downside of today’s two hour class was that the instructor played Christian music in the background the entire time. I can appreciate that it might inspire some people to paint wonderful, flowing lines and I can handle listening to several songs in a row from the genre but this non-Christian found it annoying after the first hour. I don’t understand why someone trying to build up a brand new business doesn‘t pick a “neutral” type of background music that appeals to a broader customer base. But that’s West Michigan. It’s not an uncommon practice around here. Of course there are a lot of things I don’t understand when it comes to music choices…like why do some nitwit kids think it’s perfectly okay to play hard rock at full volume when the boss walks out the door and you have to yell your order to the waitresses? I guess I want the whole world of public places to play vanilla pudding music. Think Stepford Wives who glide around in public, all harmonious and happy. No one’s annoyed, no one’s ear drums are getting blasted into early deafness. No one is driven to commit a homicide or to have sex in public because "the music made them do it." Vanilla pudding. ©

A Quick Sketch From the Past