Horse Appeal

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

After two straight days at Costco in my sample-serving role, now is welcome freedom from crowds of shoppers. This week before Thanksgiving, many shoppers hurry through aisles and stare down at long lists on cell phones or their large writing tablets. They’re pushing big carts heavy with turkeys, Christmas items, and articles of clothing.

If I didn’t work in the place, I’d also be a harried Costco shopper. But while working and watching carts pass, seeing what’s new or on sale, I can grab an item or two later before hurrying out the door. Occasionally, I do go and push a cart loaded with needed and impulse items, but prefer avoiding heavy shopping.

Time passes, and now glancing over my collected and saved items, I realize that a time may come when it’s appropriate to decide what ultimately may happen to them. My musing goes beyond collectibles and reaches toward larger items like furniture and appliances. I wonder if the cheap and utilitarian now may appeal more than the eye-catching and expensive. Frankly, I might be satisfied in an Ikea-furnished and collectibles-free environment.

My physical world isn’t ready to adapt to my mental world but something’s happening beyond pushing emptier shopping carts. Like, I’m re-exploring my roots. I’ve enrolled in an art course. To me, art is a step way back in time, to myself as a striving and dedicated artist with basic talent. In those days, I was timid and fearful, an individual who internalized my feelings and ideas. My best expressions were my pencil and pen drawings. It’s fun, recalling that in those days my favorite drawing subjects were horses!

As I matured and learned to articulate my thoughts and feelings, those early artistic efforts slowly began evaporating. At work and in school, replacing pencil lines with word lines served me well, and continues to do so.

It’ll be an experiment, this renewed attempt to create art. It should be more fun than shopping.

Dear Friends: It’s art baby-steps, and also, now modeled by “real-time horses”! Diana