Image by Midjourney
DREAM
I take out two half-finished outlines of drawings I started. They're of a young Asian man with a trendy hair cut. I line it up on my desk under a desk lamp and get back to work. He's the character for a new story I've been thinking up.
When I think of who I want this character to be and how I want the other characters to react to him, I think of someone who I was in love with as a teen.
I don't have to think too far back, because I'm staying in a house with him right now! His family and some other people who were/are important in that social circle are all there too. It's thrilling.
But when I come out of the house into my nearby art studio, it feels like recalling a distant memory, even though I'm recalling memories from a day or two ago at most.
I try to remember my emotions and thoughts about this person: the flutters, the single-minded focus, the high of actually talking to him and spending time near him.
I feel very nostalgic as I draw my imaginary universe.
INTERPRETATION
When I write, and the characters are experiencing loving relationships or interactions, I almost always draw on the friendships and experiences I had in high school. I just had really, really good friends back then. It all faded away as we left for college, or the military, or something else, one by one. But it was a really nice time of life. Living with my parents was awful, but I just spent as much time as possible outside of the house.
Having those friends taught me what it is to be a loving person in a community. I'm sure I never would have known without their influence in my life, and I'm very thankful for those experiences.
I really think that people underestimate their influence--either for good or evil. All it took was the good people around me being themselves and including me in their lives to completely transform me, and it concerns me a little that it was such a freak accident. Because everyone should have the kind of love and sense of community I had--at least for a part of their lives. Love really makes a massive difference in who someone develops into.
We usually think of destructive acts as having a lasting effect. And it sometimes seems as though it's so easy to tear down people's growth and creativity that it discourages us to act on those positive impulses to do things like reach out and say something kind and thoughtful, or to just ask how someone is doing and to listen carefully to their answer and not be afraid of their truth. Why bother? But love has a lasting effect too--something I didn't expect when it became clear that our time in high school was over.
But after the pain of that separation left, this sense of fullness and love from that time has been something I've noticed in my heart 20 years later.
