“I Was Starting To Believe It Never Really Happened!”

Mystical or mistical?

Sitting outside with a friend just enjoying the weather and a cup, we got to the subject of inspiration to create and how being an artist seems a 24/7 job. Alan asked me what time of day was my most creative time.

“Oh man, I said, in the night between 3:30am and 5:30am just before the dawn!”

“Mine, Alan said, is not quite that early but usually in the morning time before the needs of the day take hold!”

He laughed when I told him how fleeting my ideas were and that if I didn’t write them down in the dark, by the light of day, they were all gone. Something about my eyes taking over all my senses at the crack of dawn.

“Whether I approve of it or not, my eyes say, “ You’re not really gonna pursue that crazy idea, are you?”

Or… “How you gonna visually make sense of that concept?”

“Well, most people just don’t get it...Right?” he says as he rubs his index finger over a rusted spot on the metal table.

“Try to explain to the every day Joe, why you are enamored with the juxtaposition of this rusty spot next to the smooth, shiny surface of the table!”

We both agree how frustrating it is to grasp or record the many things we see that most people could care less about. Alan told me he saw in the misty morning light a fox sitting atop a stump just outside his bedroom window. He just sat there staring in wonder at the beauty of one of Mother Nature’s creations.

“You know that as soon as I turned my head to find my cellphone or a camera to record it, the animal would be gone.”

I was so enthralled at his description of the moment that to find my own parallel story would have destroyed the moment. Lord knows how often when you see something, you’ve nothing to record it.

“I turned away, momentarily, to search for my camera and the fox was gone,” he continued. So I sat there disappointedly having lost the chance to capture a moment.”

“I put the camera back on the shelf only to see the fox back in front of the window. The foggy mist had backlit the animal to accentuate the red and sienna fur and fluffy tail. I dared not move again!”

“Well, at that point, recording it was no longer a priority, I guess… It was about the moment,” I said.

“Yeh, it was, but I needed to document it for my own sanity," he said.

“I was starting to believe it never really happened!”

Copyright 2021/Ben Bensen III