Today my son showed me art work he'd done and the most striking element of one piece was where he'd written "And you thought I was crazy!" surrounded by images and words of love. There was something very visceral about it, a kind of courageous defiance to it. I understood it on so many levels, but the level I understood it on the most was in my own experience of that same phenomenon.
His art work brought me back to a time when I was about his age and did my own meaning making through art. I used to draw phoenixes over and over again, making each more personally my own, and putting quotes around them that echoed my reaction to the world. I believed in (and still do) the power of transformation, which took the form of the metaphor of the phoenix, rising from its ashes.
At the time I did this, there was absolutely nothing in my environment that would have given rise to such an idea. There was no reason for it. What I saw around me was quite the opposite and my courageous defiance had to do with believing in something in the absence of proof. I believed that people could transform themselves and rise from the ashes. I didn't know how it would happen, or what it would require, but I knew it to be an absolute truth in my life.
A funny thing happened as I grew up. I began to live my values to the degree where my own transformative process has been an impetus for me to help others, and even to be an inspiration to others, oddly enough. I never really wanted to inspire others, I just wanted to live a life consistent with something that was an absolute. I still am.
I reflect on my son's artwork and his own evolving absolute value, and I can relate, from the perspective that everyone thought I was crazy, too. It's amazing what crazy faith in a core value can do for a life, though. In his case, his relates to love. I think he means romantic love of the steadfast and undying kind. He may not see it modeled in his current environment, but it's enough for me that he believes in such a love as an absolute value. If he can imagine it, he can manifest it in his own life. I suspect he'd like me to believe in it too, based upon his insistence I watch every romantic comedy in existence with him.
What strikes me as endearing is the recognition that he shares with me the common bond of a sort of courageous defiance of "what is," a kind of blind trust in something. I nodded in admiration of his work, and silently contemplated that the moment you allow the circumstances to define you, you've lost the game.
If in his life, he holds the belief in love in some fashion, I think he'll enjoy himself as much as I have in my path of transformation. I appreciate his defiance of what exists so long as he can contemplate what is yet to be in a positive way. I can model for him the power of transformation and he can model for me the steadfast belief in love as a commitment that does not end. The place where we converge in our thinking is kind of magical.
