Simply Sunday - Ode to Joy, Rainbow Crayons, Visualization, and More

Thoughts on creative funk and unintentional drift, rainbow crayons and Harold, visualizing an apple, and the history of “Ode to Joy”

Happy Sunday! Today is multi-headed, as things so often are, but you will find bits and pieces interwoven below that include colorful crayons, visualization challenges, funks, “Ode to Joy,” reviews of a few books from a recent stack, the Illustrate Your Week prompts for Week 25, and more.

Thank you for sharing a bit of your day with me!

Amy

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Carry a Crayon

I am always asking my kids, “Do you have a charger?” “Is your charger charged?” “Do you have a cable?” Dead phone batteries scare me. Being lost. Untethered. And yet sometimes, even when you take the portable charger, you end up at close to midnight, navigating the city’s bus system, with a dead phone.

Is always keeping your device charged a life skill? Is it a mark of being able to plan ahead?

I think I’m in a bit of a funk. Funks come and go, of course, but I wonder sometimes what the dominoes were. What were the small things that added up to create this hole I’ve now tripped on. I envision Harold with his purple crayon drawing the hole ahead of me. Was it tiny, and I just happened to step into it? Was I really whistling and skipping my way through the forest and didn’t notice the big purple outline in front of me marking the hole? Or was it drawn wide so that there was nothing I could do but fall in?

Why didn’t I just pull out my own crayon and draw a bridge to the other side? I don’t really know how to draw a bridge, but since the outline of the hole is just a wiggly circle, I imagine that I could just draw an arced line, maybe a pair of them, from one side to the other and call it a bridge. If I wrote in the word “bridge,” it would be even more clear. Draw a small arrow between the word and the image, even clearer. Taken together, you would know it is a bridge.

What color would the crayon be?

In this bridge-drawing moment, I think I really need a magical, color-changing crayon, like the pencil with its swirly colored lead that changes as you write. Why don’t we all have multi-color crayons? You can take all your bits and pieces, the broken down and cast-off crayons, and put them in an old muffin tin to make rainbow-colored crayon patties or crayon muffins or crayon rocks. Whatever you call them, those blobs of melted wax would be full of color.

Maybe it makes sense though that rainbow crayons aren't a thing. We get caught up on boxes of shiny new crayons, six or eight, twelve, sixteen, sixty four, ninety six, one hundred and twenty. All of those individual crayons, sticks of possibility and colorful goodness, a color to match every situation, every mood, every detail.

A rainbow crayon would be more limiting. What color will the chair be? Rainbow! What about the couch? Rainbow! If all you had was “rainbow,” you might find that you want more control, more specificity, more options. With all the colors in the world rolled into one, you would want something different. A rainbow crayon might be a novelty, but you probably wouldn’t want a dozen of them or a shoebox full. You probably really want to draw with cornflower blue or magenta or dandelion. You want to be able to choose the right shade, the specific shade, not just leave it up to chance. Looking at the names of current crayons, there’s no competition between a chunky blob of melted crayons that promise the rainbow and a box of fun colors with fun names.

Curious, I checked, and there are a few rainbow crayon options out there. (So this isn't an unheard of thing.) A really oversized crayon that looks like it is covered in colorful confetti seems to be the most common multiple-color-crayon in regular crayon-style form. (I saw regular and neon examples.) It looks like a crayon, but it’s honestly not quite as appealing or magical as it seemed in my head. Crayons were never super popular in my house. Even though I know that Lynda Barry has students use crayons, I'm just not a fan of chunky tips and the whole waxy feel.

It was really the whimsical metaphorical rainbow crayon I think I was after, the one that would draw a sparkly bridge over the hole or a ladder to use to climb out, and then I would find myself climbing oh so high, right up to the moon, most likely.

What color would your crayon be?

(One of the books I read and reviewed this week features crayon-style art (though presented as colored pencil). It's a charming story about a young artist and writer.)

“We don’t create a fantasy world to escape reality, we create it to be able to stay.” ―Lynda Barry

Can You Picture It?

It was random, but I watched a few videos on aphantasia this week, the inability to visualize things in your mind. It’s something I talked about many years ago, not realizing at the time that there was a word for it. I remember reading, years ago, about a favorite cartoonist/graphic novelist who took lots and lots of photos to be able to draw her characters in myriad positions. Seeing that was really important for me at the time. It was a staggering proposition, but it was also empowering and a good reminder. We (can) find ways to work with what we have.

Embracing this truth is always important, but the inability to visualize objects or myself or even close my eyes and picture what a human body would look like in a certain position or pose has been a big stumbling block for me. I remember my sudden awareness that the challenge I felt working on my cartoon panels wasn’t simply a lack of skill. There was something else going on.

The show that comes to mind as a lightbulb moment was years after the graphic novel artist moment. It was around the time that I was writing a piece on Temple Grandin for work, someone who has an extraordinary ability to visualize.  I recorded that show (Episode 358) and went on, but working on graphic novel panels and in my journal has reminded me again and again of this lack of visual imagery, the inability to close my eyes and picture something. I just want so badly to be able to really see how someone else experiences this. How different is it? Of course, we can’t “see” these things. We are left only with our ability to describe what happens inside our heads, which is a difficult, largely impossible task.

Relevant old episodes:

• Episode 358:Thinking in Words and Pictures 2019

• Episode 382: Leap Day 2020

• Episode 438: Get Out From Behind My Eyeballs 2021

Books always worth mentioning, and books that are on my short-list for a re-read:

• Making Comics (Lynda Barry); this is the newer of the two

• Syllabus (Lynda Barry); I’ve read this one many times

To Imagine

The words above our living room window say “To Imagine.” Large gold letters. I think each is at least 12 inches tall. They march across the wall, fitting just perfectly between the top of the large window and the ceiling. They have been in place now for almost a quarter of a century. (When you say it like that, the years really feel dramatic.) I doubt we really notice the letters, or the words, day to day. The E is crooked now, as if it is taking a downhill turn. These letters are now home to spiders and dust. Like so many things, they are simply a part of the space, part of the contours of the room. Would we notice if they were gone? Yes. I think we would. Just like I miss the favorite gold and poppy chairs that were a part of this room for years, I know that if I woke up tomorrow, and the words were gone, I would feel the absence. (There is certainly going to be some shock to the system when we take the Christmas tree down next year.)

But, “to imagine.” There is such irony.

I leapfrogged (thanks to the “recommended videos” list) to a few videos about people who lack an internal monologue. Since I sometimes feel like I can’t escape the sound of the voice in my head, not hearing anything in your head is something that is very hard to contemplate. I sometimes wish there was a mute button or a pause or a stop or a power off. I can’t imagine being “without” the sound of my thoughts.

But then you might have trouble thinking about people who can’t just call up an image of an apple.

What do you see when you close your eyes?

What color is your crayon?

How would you draw a bridge across a simple wiggly outline of a hole?

Can’t imagine the need for a bridge over a hole? Think canyon, chasm, lake, pond.

What color is your crayon?

It might matter. A blue bridge will read differently than a bright yellow one. Depending on the water, a blue bridge might even be invisible. A pink bridge, now that would be surprising. A terracotta orange one….well, yes… of course.

Wrong Road

I teetered this week.  Chicken or egg, I'm not sure, but I also suddenly realized that I’ve gotten away from what I was trying to do in my journal. It wasn’t sudden. It’s been subtle. It’s been something growing over time, and even though I’ve felt aware of the drift and have consciously tried to reel myself back in, I seem to have moved farther and farther away from where I wanted to be. Episode 467: Loose (2022) was recorded at a similar point. I knew I needed to realign, and somehow I didn’t manage it. I kept thinking I would shift, make a series of micro-movements, small pivots, or else big ones, giant steps, broad strokes, clear the slate. But even when we realize we are off track, days and months and even years can pass. I kept to the road I was on, drawing the map ahead of me as I went, not really processing how far away I was getting from my initial path.

If I had time to open up the series of sketchbooks that represent the weeks between June 2019 and now…. I feel like this issue of roads would be clear, would unfold before me in the shifting approach, page after page, week after week, of illustrating my life. I feel like there was a sweet spot in there somewhere.

This is a nice enough road. But some course adjustments are needed. And they might not be pretty.

I’ve stewed on this a bit this week, letting the issue simmer in the back of my mind, part of the overall funk. As I sat down to draw each night, I could feel the tug of war, the seesaw, the swing of the pendulum.

What I have come around to is an acceptance that maybe this road I ended up on isn’t a different road. Maybe it was the only way at the time. Maybe it isn’t what I thought the road would look like but is the evolution of the road. Maybe the simple truth is that I  don’t have the life to accommodate the path I was charting. Maybe sticking to what I intended wouldn’t have been satisfying, challenging, fulfilling, or sustaining. Maybe.

Accepting even that possibility helps. Maybe something in me found a way, populated this road, dropped it in with a crayon and colored in lots of little prompts and whimsical things to draw as a way to circumvent the empty road. Or maybe these are all excuses as I try to sort out the drift, get my bearings, figure out what I’m doing, why, and where I am headed.

These things are on my, running threads in my head.

Draw Something You Did (This Week)

This is a prompt I probably need to start putting in play for myself. Lots of prompts I use and include are about things we see, or love, or eat, things that make us smile or laugh or cry. Those allow us to draw and document something external, the sandwich you ate for lunch, the box of tea that is your current favorite, the orchid, your favorite pen, a beloved stuffed animal, or the tote bag you’ve carried for so long that the straps are falling apart.

When I don’t know how or what to draw to represent what is going on, I just write words. Shifting that balance, doing more life sketchnoting and filling more panels has always been part of my goal.

“Draw something you did.”

That might change things just a bit, the emphasis on the doing. But you might still draw the object. I might draw the object. I probably would.

“Draw yourself in the act of doing something.”

It’s a mouthful. It has an unintentional negative connotation, a “caught red-handed” tone that shouldn’t be there. Good prompts should not be so complicated or awkward. Good prompts should be simple but open. They should invite each of us in so that we find our own approach, our own visual narrative thread.

“Draw yourself doing something.”

I spent a lot of time with the guitar this week, my newest obsession. (I would probably draw some simplified icon representing a guitar.) It may not last. I’ll outlast the sore fingers, I know that. (Woohoo! I did actually draw sore fingers into my sketchbook this week.) But will I outlast the learning curve? (I really tried with the ukulele a few years back.) It feels like a test of memory as much as of dexterity, although the latter remains a huge challenge.

I feel like I should be tracking the days. What did I play? How long? How did it feel? What could I or could I not remember? What tab did I practice? What chords? My fingers have shifted from tender and blistered to the beginnings of flattened and toughened. I already feel the roughness of the pads of my fingers catch on my keyboard differently when I am typing.

Draw something you did this week in panels.

I would draw myself playing, a dozen panels, a hundred, a day by day log, but I don’t know what it looks like. I can’t envision this awkward holding of the guitar as if I was looking at myself. I know how awkward it feels, how short I think my torso must be, how much the extra pounds get in the way, how clunky my fingers feel and how they've changed with the years. I know these things in words. But I can’t step outside and see what this looks like, this middle-aged, overweight woman trying to fit this giant guitar between her bent leg and her neck and still manage to reach around it. I can’t picture it. I know how awkward I feel, but I can’t see it. I envisioned this cartoon recording problem the same way a few years ago…. A show about getting outside my eyeballs (also mentioned above). Odd how these echoes from the past keep swirling up around me.

Joyful, Joyful

“Ode to Joy” was a starting point for my impromptu lessons, as it was more than a decade ago when my son first started playing guitar. Thinking about the “dun dun dun” of it, and remembering the Immortal Beloved movie, in which (at least as I remember it) Beethoven wanders around muttering the notes that eventually become the final movement of  Symphony No. 9, I looked it up. Having written out “dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun, dun dun dun dun du dun,” I wondered how others write it because, of course, seeing that string of phonetics makes no sense unless you can hear it in your head, unless you know the music, the cadence.

I didn’t find anyone else writing this out phonetically. (Go figure!) But I was surprised to discover there was a poem at the roots of “Ode to Joy.” (How did I not know this?) Friedrich Schiller wrote “Ode to Joy,” the poem, in 1785. I was equally surprised to realize  that a well-known hymn, “Joyful, Joyful” is set to the music of “Ode to Joy.” As soon as I saw the words in my search results, I could hear it.

I spent a bit of time reading about the development of “Ode to Joy,” skimming mostly. In my reading, these words from The Marginalian struck me: 

“One autumn day in 1822, the fifty-two-year-old composer put on his moth-eaten coat and set out for what he intended as a short morning walk in the city, his mind a tempest of ideas. Walking had always been his primary laboratory for creative problem-solving, so the morning stroll unspooled into a long half-conscious walk along the Danube. In a classic manifestation of the self-forgetting that marks the intense creative state now known as 'flow,' Beethoven lost track of time, of distance, of the demands of his own body.

He walked and walked, hatless and absorbed, not realizing how famished and fatigued he was growing, until the afternoon found him wandering disheveled and disoriented in a river basin far into the countryside. There, he was arrested by local police for “behaving in a suspicious manner,” taken to jail as 'a tramp' with no identity papers, and mocked for claiming that he was the great Beethoven…“ The Marginalian

For the graphic novel fans, there are at least two comic accounts of Beethoven’s life that you might want to look at:

• Golden Boy by Mikaël Ross

• The Final Symphony: A Beethoven Anthology

I’ve pulled a copy of Golden Boy. I think Immortal Beloved is a movie I should watch again. I need a list of movies (not documentaries) about famous musicians, writers, and artists. I was always a fan of Shakespeare in Love. This is a list that can be easily built. Titles like these about composers and musicians immediately fall into place (most of which I have not seen): Amadeus, Mr. Holland’s Opus, Chopin: Desire for Love, In Search of Mozart, The Maestro, Tár, Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, Paganini: The Devil’s Violinist, Florence Foster Jenkins, Impromptu, August Rush, and Lisztomania.

This might be a good list for me for this coming year. I’ll be needing to make a new “year” list starting next week. Having a certain “list” of movies to watch is never a bad add-on. I still have some Miyazaki movies to rewatch, too.

What movies would you add?

Patches of Light

Thanks to the reading, the traipsing, the bit of listening to Leonard Bernstein’s production of “Ode to Joy,” my morning passed, a bluebird moving through the trees, and, in the end, I felt a little bit better.

What will that mean shows up in my journal tonight? There is no way to capture the time I’ve spent writing, my device propped on a pillow, a keyboard in my lap, my legs drawn up on the couch but anchored, one foot hanging off the edge. I can’t close my eyes and see myself in this position so that I can draw it. I can’t draw the movement between the crayons, the multicolored pencil that came to mind, the dead batteries, the parenting thoughts and (and the “how to be a human” charts I saw at Instagram this week, which reminded me how I use to gamify summer for my kids), the looming birthday, and the tracking of "Ode to Joy."

I keep closing my eyes, trying to visualize the guitar propped against the edge of the gray and white chair. I do this over and over and strain to bring an image into the dark space.

My brain fills in what it can. Intellectually, I know certain things about shapes. What I know and what I see in my head easily get conflated. I think the reality is, I never picture the apple. I simply know certain things that are true about an apple.

I’m all over the place this morning, but I appreciate you spending time with me. I hope you take a few minutes to look out the window. The movement of birds in my trees is always a delight, always something that catches my attention.

Looking over the top of my computer out the window from the spot where I work. The phone gets caught up in the reflection on the glass, but the pop of the red bottlebrush trees beyond…. wonderful.

This morning, as I’ve been writing, the sun has broken through from the left. Mostly the light is flat out the window, the space beyond the trees evenly white gray, shrouded in morning fog. This makes the trees easy to see. They stand in sharp relief against the background. But as the sun streams though, maybe through just a sliver of sky, there are patches of light on some of the greenery….. It strikes me that the green is, largely, ivy of some form that has grown to cover the tree, the same ivy that has almost pulled over our fence. No, no, no….. focus on the bit of light, on the flash of blue of the blue jay’s tail as it moves along the short branches, on the shimmering greens catching the light.

I hope you have a window.

I hope there are patches of light.

I hope you hear a melody in your head.

I hope you draw or write or make something today.

I hope you smile.

What color is your crayon?

“Your sound is in your hands as much as anything. It’s the way you pick, and the way you hold the guitar, more than it is the amp or the guitar you use.” –Stevie Ray Vaughan

Henrietta’s Story and Upside Down Drawings

Two book reviews from a stack I returned last week. I especially loved Written and Drawn by Henrietta. The other title included here is Am I Pretty When I Fly: An Album of Upside Down Drawings by Joan Baez. Read the reviews.

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Illustrate Your Week — Week 25

The new prompts for Week 25 have been posted.

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