At least one angel is sounding her trumpet tonight in triumph - my feathers were barely ruffled by yet another amazing memory moment from John. It was more intellectual than emotional - detached at the same time I was slammed.
Those same blasted insects that were such a problem last week.
Understand, the whole reason I asked John - months ago - to do fantastic (as in fantasy) drawings of insects is because he enjoys drawing dragonflies & had repeatedly expressed his intention to give other bugs a whirl. I asked him to do them because it seemed to be something that would engage him.
I was wrong.
So wrong.
It didn't. He got the lady bug finished - that in itself had some fascinating twists & turns - and yesterday showed me the sketch for the butterfly. But he never got any further than the pencil rendering. Because he thought I had given him the impression it wasn't necessary, that the doing or not was totally up him. Instead, he chose to "clean up" the other two.
Amazing. From a marketing perspective, two drawings fall flat. There is power in three. Why? Something to do with critical mass.
John never got that the only reason I'd suggested over-the-top insects is because he loves drawing dragonflies, they look magnificent & show off a different side of my massively talented husband.
Clearly - alas - it never engaged him.
Each time he had a chance to move onto something else - being it a drawing an animal whose expression beckoned or "cleaning up" the lines of the dragonfly & lady bug - he did so.
But this time was more fascinating than the others in that he had a clear sense of my having given him the impression within the past 24 hours that having the butterfly wasn't essential. That he could chose to do it or not. He couldn't tell me what I said or the context in which I gave the impression, but he had a very strong sense that I had. Not in words, but in... something that registered as strongly as words.
And when I asked him, "Does it make sense that I would have said anything along those lines after making a point - repeatedly - of needing three insects?" his response was, "Right."
The man amazes. it's a curious experience, wondering what will come next. If he could get the sense from something that I conveyed in some fashion other than using words that it was perfectly fine to just have the dragonfly & lady bug - - well, if he can pluck that out of the air, then anything is possible.
So, bye bye butterfly. Bye bye framed prints & notecards. There just isn't time.
My #1 goal for this year's craft sale was to have fun from start to finish. My core batches of cookies are baked AND packaged. Bought snappy white envelopes for John's prints. Have ribbons for tying up the cards featuring John's pet-traits & trains. Just because we won't have the insect prints (framed & unframed) & cards is no reason to go off the rails!
Bye, bye butterfly - and hello to the glee of knowing that THIS situation presented itself as information rather than a communication catastrophe. It was a fresh opportunity to more clearly experience & better understand a core dynamic that ain't about to vanish soon - someday, I hope, but not this week.
How unspeakably astonishing to not feel a single aaarrrrgggghhhh bone in my body as it unrolled. Incredible to go to bed happy - HAPPY.
Things hadn't turned out the way I'd hoped, yet I understood something better than ever before.
And John knows - well, at least I told him - there really is NOT time to do the butterfly, not even if he'd started right after last night's reveal. The whole point of bringing it up months, weeks, days ago was to avoid any last minute stress. We are two insects closer to having John's fantasy insects at the 2015 Bryn Athyn Craft Sale. And there's more than enough cutting for him to do between now & Friday noon. So, no harm no foul.
This is a craft sale to be enjoyed. John didn't get the butterfly done, but he did stay open last night to discussing what had happened. I stayed open to seeing the mysterious working of his artist brain.
We won't have three prints I'd hope to offer, but we ended up with a much stronger union. Together we spun straw into gold - bye bye butterfly, hello love!
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