Call it Consciousness,
because to blame all this on some sort of larger pattern
would be to ruin half the beauty.
The philosopher in me,
the part that's suffered the loss of loved ones
(long ago and more recently),
would really like to believe there is a purpose
bigger than I can presently comprehend.
But the artist,
the majority of who I am,
knows how most "perfect" brush strokes
are fuck-ups gone good.
and most "mistakes" are actually areas that have been overworked;
fussed with by a perfectionist attitude
until it's beyond repair
-and then-
you're stuck.
To try and label every death,
every first kiss,
or in this case, every chance encounter
as destiny, fate, or something other than a completely mindless brush stroke
that just happened to be golden,
is to be fussing with that perfect brush stroke.
Now, God very well may be involved,
but my money is on him being the owner of the art supplies store,
a seasoned painter himself,
who's just passing on past knowledge
attained through many, many,
many,
4ams sketched away
-and for a reasonable price,
supplying us with the means to repeat his success in our own right.
Call it consciousness,
because Fate doesn't entertain free will.
It's the accident of our first meeting
that makes it so wonderful.
The thought that we may have never achieved any of the things that we have,
we may have died as babies,
fever victims,
and never kissed anyone,
we could have gotten in terrible wrecks
with expensive cars,
died on impact,
and never gotten to lay on the floor discussing music with one another...
but we didn't.
We lived.
We told the "scared shitless" stories of the near wreck,
we listened to parents ramble on about our 104 degree fever that happened before our memory had kicked in,
we even dodged being born in a time before Sealab 2021,
and godammit,
that'd be a tragedy.
The important thing
is that we keep painting.
So the mindless brush stroke
is only mindless
so far as painting well
has become completely natural.

04/06/2007

Author's Note: Prettiest patterns are purely accidental

Posted on 04/07/2007
Copyright © 2010 Nickolas Crosby