It Started with Peddling Comic Books

I stood in front of the refrigerator; arms proudly bent at the elbow, hands in fists resting on hips. With feet spread evenly, shoulder width apart, I cocked my head back, allowing an exultant chin to jut out in pure triumph. The deed I had done lay spread out in front of me, and so a smile spread itself expectantly across my face. Just as planned my mother came over to inspect my kindergarten handiwork, hanging front-and-center on the fridge door. “Very good Alan, it looks wonderful!” she cooed running her hand through my shaggy blond hair. “Thanks, mom,” I replied, allowing her to bring me in for a hug. . . . From the very beginning of my history with pencil and paper I loved to create art. Those early years of my childhood I created innumerable prints, paintings, pictures, and doodles. It wasn’t long, however; before my clumsy kindergarten drawings progressed into more skillfully rendered sketches. The third-grade was about the time that my proficiency within the visual arts became evident from amongst my peers. Differences between what I created and that of my classmates was subtle; more accurately rendered shape, a better placement of details, and higher levels of symmetry all marked my burgeoning artistic ascension. Soon classmates were paying me for poster sized replications of the KU Jayhawk (looking back, an obvious copyright infringement), prints of rainforest animals, and the latest installment of my new comic book, “Star Boy.” . . . “Five dollars!” cried a classmate. “No six dollars!” shouted another. “Twenty-one dollars and eighty-seven cents,” came Mason Grey’s offer, stepping forth. His backpack jingled with the sound of loose change as he proffered his funds for the impromptu auction. “Sold!” I said, happily accepting Mason’s offer for the newest addition to the Star Boy comic series. A collective sigh emanated from the assembled students as they shuffled back to their desks. Plopping his Jansport backpack on a nearby desk, Mason quickly unzipped it and began counting the change within. . . . Somehow, at the time, the scene of fourth-grade children openly bartering for goods in a classroom didn’t strike anyone within its confines as out-of-the-ordinary, not even the teacher sitting quietly at her desk. That moment wouldn’t be my last to see me profit from my artistic creations; many more like it would serve to galvanize me as an artist and an entrepreneur, thereby irrevocably shaping the course of my expository writing. Years later, in high school, my incessant sketching and classroom doodling led me to an inevitable encounter with the computer program Photoshop. At the behest of my independent study instructors, who saw my evident passion for graphic arts, I used my sixth-hour class period to complete a self-instruction course on the program. The relationship between Photoshop and I has been a love affair ever since. After becoming proficient with the use of its image creation and editing capabilities, I quickly put them to use creating cover graphics and using the program to integrate text and sketches into my first poetry book. Though I had begun to experiment with poetry and the effects achievable through crafting sentences and stanzas, Photoshop helped to expand my love of visual artistry into the boundaries of print media by integrating the two. Soon Photoshop had gone beyond stoking a smoldering interest in writing and fanned it into a full obsession. Within two years becoming proficient with the program I had published two poetry volumes, “The Symphony of Frost and Flame” and “Trashcan of Literary Garbage” for distribution amongst friends and family. Expressing my early literary work with these books, I became enamored with the act of writing poetry itself. Each poem was composed not only of carefully crafted expository lines and stanzas, but also by fonts that conveyed the desired mood and aesthetic line formatting. In this way, poetry acted as the ideal segue between graphic design and literary composition. Placing some emphasis on the visual elements of poetry and creating accompanying graphics, the pursuit was not exclusively literary, and soon it began to foster a love for crafting the same artistry into prose.

Flora Conversing (Thinking Lawnmower Thoughts)

If I’m a beech
Then you’re a birch
As time goes on and my trunk grows full
Deep brown branches hungrily extend
Reaching out for anything else to touch

To me, lawnmower thoughts and artistic inspiration are one in the same. Something inspirational lies in the melancholic humming of a two-horsepower motor, spinning a sharpened piece of steel, spitting out fresh hewn grass.

During Spring days I walked. On summer afternoons I walked. In the Autumn evening I walked. I walked. And I walked. And I walked; always behind a lime green Lawnboy lawnmower. As I walked came thoughts. Often times those thoughts would have me running for the garage door, scampering around in kitchen drawers, frantically searching for a pen and scrap of paper, in the hopes that I might capture airy inspiration. Sometimes my net came up empty and I slouched back out the door to the summer heat or the autumn chill. Sometimes it didn’t, and as I inspected my catch the words spilled forth.

You grow in the cold
White and thin
Raspy and soft skin
To the wind you bend
Taking all, to live tall, another day

Those were the ways of my poetry, that of trying to catch lightning strikes in glass jars. Time would tick by while I expectantly waited, jar in one hand, lid in the other. All in anticipation of the split-second when I could slam the lid down, sealing it in. Too late, succumbing to a moment of hesitation, then it would be gone, and I was back to waiting. When my efforts did pay off, I took to feverishly writing, regardless of time or place, be it in classroom or bathroom. I would bury my head in a piece of paper or hunch over a keyboard, scratching and clicking away at preternatural speed. The moment of writing would proceed at a fever pitch until, at last, in an act of literary climax I would push away from my work with a self-satisfied, if not relieved, sigh. For a moment I would revel in what I had wrought, welcoming my creation into the world with affectionate eyes and a knowing smile.

If we grew together
I would reach out to be with you
You would rise up to meet me
Graceful sleek, with rough dark meek
Differences blending into complete

Thus my poetry was akin to an act of nature, something hardly tame and barely controllable. Yet I was enthralled by it, staring down at the page as if the words came from somewhere else. It was terrifying in a way, not understanding how a thing came into creation, but merely seemed to be the reaction of an impulse; like the act of sneezing after a tickle on the nose. I have never understood where the words to my poetry come from, and I imagine I never will. Still, to me poetry was beautiful and I excused the rudeness of its abuses, accepting it for the animal it was, letting it come to me and leave me as it pleased.

So it did, as it still does.

Refrigerator Hero

Eighteen-years later and my kindergarten handiwork no longer hangs on the fridge door. Time has passed, a menagerie of family photos, notes, and coupons have been tacked up and taken down in its stead. Over and over again. Life has gone on and I come to the realization that I no longer love toucans as I once did. How much could have changed, from then until now? Gazing at the now barren facade, I wonder at what I’ve gained during that time, and how much I’ve lost, since I last stood here eighteen-years before. . . . It’s late. I’ve been up frantically working on my latest work. It is the third volume of poetry that I am to produce, and it is meant for only one person. “Remember to have plenty of quarters,” I write, “in my first year of college I quickly realized a single quarter can be more valuable than a single dollar.” The girl I write to, I adore her. She has been on my horizon for years now, within sight, out of reach. I implore her to keep those most meaningful to her, at the very least, within that same proximity. I hope that is the way she will keep me. At college I study poetry under a poet-laureate, philosophy from a scholar, and non-fiction from a pragmatist. The world rotates. I look to the horizon and see she’s not there. Somewhere, covered in dust, a black book of poetry goes unread. . . . Pragmatism grips me. Everyday a Moleskin travels by my side, ready to record observations and introspections. Rousseau, Mill, Locke, and Descartes have convinced me that a discernible order must exist to the world. Journal entries fill the Moleskin. Each entry is another step to an inexorable march of analytical thought, slowly pushing the flame of poetry from its pages. . . . I come to find that two years has passed and I have not written a single line of poetry. More surprising still, I come to find that I am ok with that fact. Like a child who puts the last of their dinosaur toys away in dingy attic storage in favor footballs and baseball bats, I eschewed poetry for novel format, narrative, and prose. I began to draft expositions with titles the like of: Gold Rimmed Glasses, Tears of the Moon, and The Wandering City. The passion that has driven me, from kindergarten pictures to comic books, impassioned poetry to narrative exposition, has on the surface changed, but at its heart it remains untouched. Each new piece of literary art, whether shared with friends, family, or colleagues, brings the satisfaction of expression that only pen on paper can create. No matter how many years pass from the day that I stood in front of the fridge, artwork proudly displayed on its door, I will always be that same boy, waiting with an expectant smile. Art will always be an expression of myself, an attempt at grasping a greater understanding of the world. Most importantly, it will always bring with it the expectation of those proud feelings felt so long ago when my mother ruffled my hair and said, “that’s wonderful Alan!” I’ll always want to be the hero of that old refrigerator door.