Jean Burman

Special Moment 2
Another special moment occurred when I was trying to divest myself of my mother’s umbrella in preparation for my flight home. I know… that sounds really strange… and I accept that you may need a little history in order to understand.

A couple of years ago I had given my mother a beautiful umbrella for her birthday. The umbrella had “looked” like my mother… (she was a rose kind of woman)… and this umbrella had large pink roses all over it. I had long admired these particular umbrellas with their bold floral prints… and longed for one myself. So… as is often the case with such things… I gave the present I longed to receive… and never ended up with one myself!

So when my mother died after a long illness at the end of 2005 the umbrella came back to me by default. But somehow… no matter how beautiful I thought it was… it never truly became mine. It also held memories I did not want to keep… but somehow I never had the heart to give it away.

I hadn’t realised when we set off on our road journey that the umbrella was still in the boot (trunk) of the car. So when I opened it to retrieve my luggage for the trip home… there was the umbrella! Claire felt uncomfortable about keeping it… so with reluctance… I stashed it under my arm and took it with me to catch my flight.

I had thought to leave it (inadvertently) in the rental car I had hired to get me back to Brisbane… but no that would never do. Then as I disposed of my steel nail file (the one I had forgotten to give Claire so it wouldn’t be confiscated by security) into the airport bin before check in… the somewhat desperate thought flashed through my mind to do the same with the umbrella… but no… I couldn’t do that either.

Proceeding then to the check in counter I was predictably informed that I was not allowed to carry the umbrella onboard… and that it would have to be checked in. At that moment… something inside me screamed “noooooo”… and I heard myself saying in a calm voice…

“Oh no… the umbrella’s not travelling with me… I’ll be giving it to a friend”. So as my checked in luggage passed out of sight along the carousel I knew there was no turning back now and that the umbrella and I were destined to part… and sooner rather than later!

“In a bewildering paradox - an umbrella gives shelter from the rain - and protection from the sun - but sometimes the shadow cast can overwhelm us”

I scanned the terminal building looking for someone to give it too. (I know it sounds nuts… but I couldn’t think of another way). I stood for a long time outside the security area with it’s three rows of xray equipment and surveyed the people going through. It was then that I spotted her… a rather elegant looking older woman (dressed in security uniform)… on the other side. Suddenly I knew I’d found her!

I sailed through security… (unusual for me… as mostly I am reduced almost to underwear before the darned sensor stops beeping - grin ) and walked right up to the woman I had seen from the other side. She gave me a helpful look… and I offered her the umbrella.

“Would you like my umbrella?” I heard myself ask. She looked at me curiously. I went on… “I’ve been told I can’t take it on board”. She looked at me hesitantly again… this time offering to find a way for me to take it onboard.

With a smile… my words came calm and decisive “Oh no… I don’t think so… I’m all done with it now… and I’d like you to have it with my blessing”. She looked down at the umbrella and then back at me… her face uncertain. I gave her an earnest look. She hesitated for a long moment… then… with a beautiful smile spreading slowly across her face… she did what I had hoped she would do and accepted it with good grace.

As I turned to step onto the escalator that would take me to the flight gate… she called out in afterthought

“So then… you’re going somewhere that never rains?” And I called back with a wink and a smile “Too right!”

Suddenly my heart was filled with a curious mix of sadness first… relief… and then elation! It was finally over… and I stepped out into the light.

Comments always welcome!

Special moments come along every once in a while for all of us… the trick is to be paying attention when they turn up… and to be ready to receive them when they do! Many of these moments could be described as “unremarkable”… but if we were to pick them up one by one… and examine them closely… quite often what we might find are simple life lessons just waiting to be learned! There were a couple of such moments on our trip away that I thought I might share with you. Besides the obvious special moments spent with my beautiful daughter… talking and laughing… singing and simply sitting there behind the wheel with the occasional smiling glance between us… I found myself somewhat unprepared for the very special gift of the others.

Special Moment 1

Monday morning found me not only down on the beach marvelling like a child at the huge ocean waves crashing onto the sand… (we don’t have waves like that in the North because of the offshore reefs) but also… more practically… looking in earnest for an automatic car wash! The car was a mess… every species of bug known to man had been sacrificed in the name of speed and expediency upon the windshield of our travels! In short… we had bugs splattered everywhere… along with tar grit and grime from the road. I was sure we would need a shovel to remove it all.

After negotiating my way through the early morning peak hour traffic amongst some of the rudest and most discourteous road users I have ever encountered… (I know…they too have their story! grin) I pulled into the carpark of a rather large shopping centre (mall) where I found a bunch of eager car cleaners and detailers already at work. They agreed to give it their best… so I left them to it for the next hour and a half. Walking in to the shops I couldn’t help but notice the angry tooting of car horns… and this was only the carpark!

On my return they had indeed done a fine job… the car was like new… so I paid them… thanked them profusely… and then inadvertently drove off in the wrong direction. No exit signs… but everyone there seems to instinctively know that cars exit clockwise from the undercover carpark… (kind of like the water down the plughole theory). Everyone that is… except me. Driving as the crow flies… as oft I do… I rounded the corner encountering head-on a couple of oncoming cars. Realising my mistake I immediately pulled hard to the left to let them pass… thus giving me time and space to hopefully renegotiate my direction after they had passed.

But no… the woman in the approaching car wasn’t going to let me get away with it that easily. Predictably… (yes wait for it)… she blasted the horn… then waved her fists and yelled abuse. I couldn’t hear her because the windows were up and I couldn’t understand her anyway because she seemed to be cursing in some foreign language that I’d certainly never heard before… but I DID get the drift! I gestured a shrug and offered a smile… but no… that wasn’t going to do the trick.

no… NOT me! (grin)

I was quite unprepared for what happened next! I thought she was about to break my arm… but instead her face broke into the biggest and widest grin. She jumped immediately to my defence… and started apologising herself. I feel quite certain she would have then climbed out of her car to assist me further had I not insisted otherwise! I can only guess at what had caused her to change her mind… but I suspect that city folk get pretty used to dealing day to day with each other in anger and pent up hostility.

My response was not what she had expected… or indeed anything like what she had been used to. (Someone willing to smile and apologise must be nuts!)
And so it would seem… when you scratch the thin veneer of hostility… there’s often a very nice person in there somewhere just waiting to be let out. As she sailed off with a generous wave… my heart warmed to the idea that I had indeed made a new friend!

It was then that I caught the death stare from the person in the following car… already muttering obscenities under her breath. *sigh* I decided against opening the car window this time… forgoing the opportunity to make yet another carpark friend… I was tired… and one can sometimes have too many friends anyway! *wink* and (smile)

My Dad was a late-in-life convert to so called “modern” music and in the late 70s one of his favourite songs was Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again”. I hadn’t heard it in a very long time and hadn’t in fact given it much thought since… until my recent road trip (with daughter Claire) found me right back there “on the road (yet) again”.

Dad and I had, over the years, shared many long haul road trips together. Of course… in Australia… travelling almost “anywhere” entails a journey of vast distances… so over the years Dad and I had become adept at the long-haul “low-fly” to our nearest capital city of Brisbane 1700 kilometers away (that’s approx.1200 miles). Back in those days the road wasn’t so good. Narrow and winding… Highway One was dotted with single lane bridges (on which we were obliged to play chicken with semi-trailers, buses and all manner of heavy transport)… unmarked railway crossings… and potholes so big you could get lost in one for a week!

My Dad was a practical man and always prepared thoroughly before setting out… ensuring we had ample supplies and emergency equipment in the car. A torch and damp rag were essential (for flats in the night and… bugs on the windscreen respectively).

Once… many years ago… I had to make the journey alone. So the day before I left… he instructed me to jack the car and rotate the wheels just to reassure himself that I could manage by myself if disaster struck. He also lectured me on the mechanics of my car… proffering various scenarios which I was then expected to cough up a solution to… should I break down in some isolated spot on a remote road late at night. No mobile phones back then!

So… it was with all these thoughts and wonderful memories of my Dad in mind… that Claire and I set off (after lunch) last Saturday for Brisbane. It had been 17 years since we had made the last road trip to Brisbane… back in the dark days of the national pilot’s strike in 1990. Claire was just a baby… and of course… didn’t remember any of it! So everything was new to her… the road… the amazing ever-changing scenery that typifies our beautiful State… the vastness of distance… and the mind numbing monotony of that endless black ribbon of highway!

Day 1 we travelled for 9 hours… arriving in Mackay at 10.30pm on Saturday night. Over the day we talked and talked… fell silent for a while… and then talked some more. As night fell… with spirits high we were singing “Under the Boardwalk” and “Ain’t no Mountain High Enough” at the top of our voices with the windows down. I think we may have scared off the locals in more than one town we passed through… but hey… at least we didn’t go to sleep at the wheel!

Day 2 was always going to be a biggie… so we set off early after breakfast… before the heat of the day set in. The “Marlborough stretch” is just what it sounds like. A vast straight stretch of over 300 kilometers of uninterrupted highway traversing some of the driest (but also most beautiful) cattle grazing country in the State. These days the road is dominated by heavy transport and grey nomads in caravans and RVs… but back many years ago when Dad and I drove it… you could travel for hours and hours and not see another soul for miles!

We arrived in Rockhampton (heart of cattle country) around 11am and were lucky enough to stumble upon the one and only hip and happening coffee shop right in the centre of town. It was bursting at the seams with late morning “brunchers” so Claire and I settled in for another breakfast with an eggs benedict each… and a strong cappuccino for the driver… who was by now seriously contemplating the possibility of making this place home… rather than having to face the alternative of getting back “on the road (yet) again”

By 1.30pm we had snapped out of it… and reluctantly got back into the car for what would be the final 700 odd kilometers. An hour out… in the heat of the day… the air conditioning iced up and failed. The irony was not lost on me that of all the things my Dad had prepared me for on a long car journey… air conditioning failure was NOT one of them! Afterall… back “in the day” there were no air conditioners… and winding the windows down was as good a way as any of keeping your cool. Actually it wasn’t all THAT bad… but we sure had to sing awfully loud over all that rushing wind!

We reached Gympie by nightfall… and sailed into Brisbane and then on to the Gold Coast on the M1… a beautiful state of the art motorway the likes of which we will never see in the deep North. This stretch which used to take in excess of 3 - 4 hours to travel can now be done with ease in no time at all… downhill all the way! It was fabulous to put your foot down and fall in with all the other speeding drivers… making the last hours on the road such a lot of fun. It had been 13 hours since we left Mackay.

It surprises me that for all the beautiful road systems… and ease of travel these days… people are more stressed out and annoyed than ever before. Road rage is rampant in the city… and impatience and intolerance is a perfected artform there!

FUZZY LOGIC - Kind of makes you wonder why… when people have it all… they can’t just be happy about it! LOL

More next time…

“It’s the elusive magic… the pure statement… (the stuff you sometimes see in the paintings of a child) that almost always inspires and excites me in a painting! I think in it’s purest form… art making (and viewing) is meant to be fun”

But as most artists already know… the elusive magic is not easy to capture… and the pure statement… most difficult to achieve. It’s deceptive really… what looks so easy and effortless is very often hard to do… and more often than not… the pure statement is (contrary to what we may have thought) the product of considerable prior thought… coupled with measured restraint (and a healthy dose of gay abandon)… all delivered with an economy of means… and with clear and precise action! phewww!

In short… we must think… plan… prepare… get in there… and then get out as fast as we can!

FUZZY LOGIC

I had an art teacher once who would continually shout “STOP FIDDLING” - she was sooo right!

“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties” - Ray Bradbury

If a man does not keep pace with his companions… perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears… however measured or far away” - Thoreau

So we’ve found our “voice”… now how about our Signature Style? But what actually IS it? And how do we get it?

Signature Style could be described as our own unique creative DNA. It’s what’s left of our art… after we take out the years of art education (both formal and self), the influence of other artists and educators, and the styles and trends of the times in which we live.

As mentioned in the Comments section in the last topic…

“I don’t think our artistic voice ever really changes… but the tone of it will vary over time with the gained experience of a lifetime. What was there at the first… our creative DNA or blueprint… if you like… is there innately in us. What we do… and the way we do it will change… but what motivates us and how we translate the new information into something that’s workable for us will be determined by what is authentically and uniquely already there.”

“There is nothing new except what has been forgotten” - Marie Antoinette

Therefore… signature style is more than us having an original thought or idea… and it also transcends our choice of subject, technique or method. Signature style is the way in which we “say” it… the way in which we “express” the idea, subject, technique or method.

It is the unique way in which the paint goes on… and the words go down!

And I guess… somewhere in our hearts… the hope would be that someday (maybe) in making our own unique and authentic mark… we will be leaving behind us our own indelible and unforgettable footprint!

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation” - Herman Melville

“I love deadlines… I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by” - Douglas Adams

Deadlines have certainly whooshed by… just as time this week has roared on through like a runaway freight train!  New topic “Signature Style” will be up tomorrow (promise!)  See you then!