Chet and I are camping in the most random campground in Dubuque, Iowa. It’s late at night and our legs are restless from the drive. We go for a walk, but the campground is small, and after three laps, we decide to veer off the grounds and begin hiking the unlit and deserted road. Our minds tend to wander as we physically wander, which the malleable shadows and surrounding darkness play into. As through a portal, I began walking through memories being projected from within. Memories of a similar structure. Chet and I backpacking through the Smoky Mountains, then the Rocky Mountains, then California, then Texas where I spooked a black bear. I began to see it almost as a song, and what hits me is not the variety of verses, but the depth of the chorus.
Once reaching the top of a steep hill in the road, we take a left into a gravel road. Immediately after doing this, a car shoots over the hill, blasting down the lane we just stepped out of. We walk a bit down the gravel road until we can see its ending. We stop, and take it all in.
“Some random hill in Dubuque, Iowa.” I say, looking up at a handful of stars.
“Yeeeeep”, Chet says, wearing a face that says he’s calculating what constellation he can.
“Sh%#s crazy.”
‘Suuure is.”
When around anyone long enough, there’s a natural shorthand language that forms, housing all sorts of inside jokes, movie references, as well as connotations to sentences that appear simple, but really contain galaxies of experiences and invisible connections.
When I said “Some random hill” what was really being described was the entire topography of our total travels, mapped out from one end of the country to the other.
When Chet responded with a drawn out “Yeeeeep”, he was really expressing our shared awe of being able to continue such an adventure growing into epic proportions.
“Sh$#s crazy,” interpreted really says–”It’s beyond crazy to actually witness our long time dream of Do Art actually manifesting. All those books we read, all the studying studied, all the creations created. Our dreams are happening right now.”
“Suuure is,”–interpreted means, ‘and it’s only going to get crazier.’
Eventually, of course, we tread back to camp, and then eventually, of course, we wake up the next day, attend our 14th comic con for the year, run our free drawing booth, and give prizes to anyone confident enough to draw a wacky picture of Chet or I. This goes amazingly, as most creative shared experiences do, and we inspire hundreds of drawings, and give away as many stickers and toys. And eventually, of course, a parent will stop me, and personally thank me for doing what we are doing. This has begun to happen so much that I have developed a proper response of gratitude and confess to how blessed we are to be given the abilities and chance to do this. But at this convention, something else was said to me, that my response didn’t work for. A gentleman came up to me after we finished breaking down, and stopped abruptly to shake my hand. When offering his hand,he showed his palm, which is an immediate sign of respect and vulnerability. I shook his hand, and prepared to confess my blessed appreciation. But then he kept going.
“No, let me tell you, what you guys are doing is not only great for these conventions, giving the kids to not only create but express themselves and open up, but what you guys are doing is great for humanity. I just hope that you keep doing what you are doing.”
I was frozen. Without interpretation needed, or any explanation of our own preparation for this moment, I told him the absolute honest to god truth.
“We will.”
