It feels a little bit uncomfortable to share some light hearted humor with you when the people in Ukraine are scared for their lives. I don’t know where you are, I don’t know if you’re safe. Then again, I never knew the details of your life. You could go through dark times when everyone else is celebrating.
I feel powerless in the face of something so evil and what I try to do, is to be present with my children. They bring me back to where I am, grateful to be alive. They pull me off the news and make me laugh with silly dances and that’s exactly what I need. I hope this email does this for you.
My youngest child turned seven last week. I started drawing comics every day when he was two. This is one of the very first, made in August 2017:
While he learned to do forward rolls…
and not poop his pants…
I learned how to draw better comics.
There are a few thoughts that go through my mind when I look at these older comics:
This is embarrassing, I couldn’t draw back then.
I wish I was still drawing a page every day, but how on earth did I do it?
These are actually quite fun to read.
Coen really really really wanted a piano.
He tried two lessons and discovered playing piano is hard. I told him all the things I think you’re supposed to tell a child when he’s afraid of making mistakes. I reminded him of how scary it was at first to ride a bike and now he’s not scared at all.
I tell him that only if he makes lots and lots of mistakes, he will learn how to play beautiful music.
It doesn’t help.
Of course if doesn’t help. A promise of becoming a better cartoonist didn’t make me draw every single day. The one thing that finally got me started and kept me going seven days a week for two years was curiosity. I wasn’t drawing for any other reason than wanting to know what would happen if I sit down to draw for half an hour every single day.
With that curiosity gone, I can’t even draw every day, despite knowing I’m capable of it.
We’re hoping to find a teacher that relights that curiosity that made him ask for a piano. In any case, we’ll keep the piano. Partly because he might start fooling around and wanting to learn more.
Mostly, because having a piano in the living room it not annoying unlike so many other things an almost seven year old could ask for.
With love,
