J...o...h...n...’...s.....J...o...u...r...n...a...l

December 25, 2001

" . . . So ask not of special favors, my children— ask that we do His will and stay strong in faith, and only then will the path be made straightway to our valley. Sow your seed on fertile ground, that you may reap a bountiful harvest."

. . . — DADBO, CD19


As we dream by the fire. . .
. . . It's a typical Christmas Day at the Town House— Dana in the kitchen (my Iron Chef), and John puttering around with brush or pen (her tinsel artiste). The trick for me is to find a creative task that is demanding enough to yield a satisfying result, but not serious enough to stress out this most special of all holidays. After a few hours of watercoloring at my basement hideaway, I end up facing a blank page in my journal. Tradition... Isn't that what makes Christmas so comfortable?
. . . As another year comes to a close I'm thinking about all the things I've wanted to write about over the past months and all the splendid diversions never begun. I guess I'm always thinking about new projects, gifts, works of imagination, and ambitious endeavors that are just plumb craz-o. I don't spend much time contemplating design anymore. It's my profession and it's what I do, but my visions are about paintings, legends, portraits, storyboards, sculptures, screenplays, detailed woodcuts, enormous collages, and illustrated narratives. I ruminate about business, but I dream about art... And my house.
. . . A house in Clan Valley is more than a dream. I suppose it's become a metaphor for a life on standby. Isn't it why I came to Kentucky? To "go back to the land" and create a home among the knobs? To fulfill the ultimate, self-declared design assignment? And I've put it off for all those murky reasons of mine, and it doesn't happen. I need that environment to make sense of all the unanswered questions about my later life, but it doesn't happen because I don't make it happen. I don't choose to make it a reality. Maybe things will be different next year.
. . . Next year... A milestone year, for sure. As Will Penny says to Catherine in my favorite Heston picture— "I'm damn near fifty years old!"
. . . Jon the Pirate was forty and he could handle it, but what about fifty? Magga Keeh was in his fifties, right? By any measure, an "old man" to a youngster, and yet it's clearly the prime of life. Fifty must surely be the gateway to a decade of extraordinary achievements. I can't see it as anything else. I'm no longer "pushing fifty." I'm pushing aside my dreams if I don't enter this decade with the optimism and enthusiasm to manifest all the good things for which I've prepared myself. And to share them with those I love.
. . . Love, as ever, is the key. To love myself, but others above self. How? To love God first, and to act out of devotion. How? To love nature, and His creatures, and His sons and daughters, and His will for humankind, and to be grateful for all His creation and all His gifts... especially myself. And out of this gratitude and respect for the temple will come the energy and attitude for attempting great things.
. . . My father— my namesake —was not a famous man, but he was a great man. A flawed man, but a loving and generous man. A determined man, a leader, and a patriot. A man of application and perspective. A practical man, but a dreamer of dreams. And he made his dreams come true. And he overcame difficult personal challenges and put it all together in his fifties. And then he moved forward with his companion. Not everyone understood. Not everyone needed to. Perhaps he didn't fully understand the goal himself— at least not at the beginning. Perhaps we still don't fully appreciate his dream. But we must try. We must try to accept our faults, as he did in himself and in us, and transcend them. For the sake of the dream. For the sake of each other.
. . . For God's sake... Why can't I do it, too?


" . . . Our day was very quiet, with the kind of special quality I still find in the holiday season, with the tree looming large and mysterious in the front room."

. . . — HESTON, 12/73



December 25, 1998
Three years ago . . .
. . . Here on St. Martin, we both know it's Christmas— intellectually, that is —but it won't sink in emotionally. The increased level of quiet and peacefulness at Anse Marcel is marked however. Normally there are all kinds of little tin-box cars, lorries, and taxis running up and down the hill, supplying the resort and marina below. Most of these little vehicles seem silly, as though you could crush them with your bare hands like a beer can.
. . . Dana and I woke up in each other's arms this morning, so sweet, and then she toasted the last of our French bread to have with our fruit and coffee. Bon. One of the great mornings of my life...
. . . I would like to carve out a few more minutes to paint, but it just might not work out. Remember, you can stop and paint a little now and then in your "ordinary life," too, if you can just slow down, attune with times like these, and really see what is around you. A house plant or piece of fruit may not be as exotic as the vegetation outside our door, but they are just as "paintable," if you allow yourself to truly "be there."
. . . So few artistic people are able to carry the spirit of the creative youth into adulthood, and fewer still will take that spirit forward to any level of mature sensibility. Some rare souls have that undeniable, driving need to paint at all costs, but the rest of us have to force ourselves to pay attention to that need and nurture the creative aspects of our being. And if we don't, we find ourselves enduring a lingering sense of unfulfillment that nags and erodes and grates at our well-being.
. . . So get on with our last day here and maybe I can do it all. Isn't that the perpetual hope of each day— to fit in all the ingredients that will keep me sane? Perhaps a forlorn hope, but I still cling to it, especially at times like this. Beware the day you lose it, lad...



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