For the Everyday Matters “Toy” Challenge
My Darling Bobo
I haven’t had him very long. His fur is not rubbed off and his ears are still connected but he is very real to me. Last year, I was going through inner child therapy and started really paying attention to what the little girl inside of me wanted. I went to a toy store after therapy one night and found him. I instantly knew his name was “Bobo” and I fell in love with the sweet, tender expression on his face. When my toddler saw him, she immediately tried to claim him for her own. My therapist told me that according to “toddler property law” (my inner child being the toddler in this case) I didn’t have to share him. Sometimes I did and sometimes I didn’t because he and I knew that ultimately he would be mine forever. I held him and cried many tears as I processed the pain inside of me. I slept with him when I needed to and sometimes he just came with me in the car like a little, furry guardian angel.
I have become even more intimately acquainted with him since I began drawing him. I love the look in his eyes and softness. I am very grateful to the warm and tender Danny Gregory for writing his very inspirational book, Everyday Matters, which I just finished. His deep-seeing and courage inspire me too look a little closer at life and appreciate each moment that much more.
I realized that children don’t really understand crying when you’re happy. I imagine this has to do with how freely they express all emotions. There is very little repressed joy (or anger, or sadness or anything else) inside of them so it isn’t like a dam bursting when it is finally being felt as it can be for many adults. I revel in the authenticity and transparency of children. I cherish the friends in my life with whom I have mutual transparency. This can happen with there is emotional safety. Once this safety is present, it is no longer scary to let our truest emotions out to play.
The inspiration for my Illustration Friday submission.
Art mirrors life, as they say.
Tiny fingers on Daddy’s neck in the morning light.
I wish adults would allow juice to stay on their cheeks the way toddlers do. (I suspect more cheeks would be kissed if we did.) I was kissing my little muse today and smelled the strawberries she had for breakfast that were all over her cheeks. I closed my eyes and let my spirit soar through the many memories related to that delicious smell. I recall a handful of perfectly ripe berries I ate at a bed and breakfast last summer, one of which I rubbed into the pages of my journal so that I wouldn’t forget that moment of blissful sensuality. I rubbed those berries all over my arms and let them kiss my lips like a lover. I enjoyed every delicious, juicy morsel as though I was making love to them. Including strawberries in lovemaking is another memory but I’ll keep it clean here. 
Smelling those little cheeks also reminded me of homemade strawberry ice cream in my youth, of picking tiny alpine strawberries with my oldest child and of the wonderful homemade strawberry shortcake that my grandma makes for my mom for her birthday each year.
Recalling these memories brings me to a higher vibration and helps my spirit soar. Because of today’s cheek kissing I have another memory in my pyschic data bank that will flood in the next time I breathe the essence of strawberries.
“First of all, I want to make one thing quite clear;
I never explain anything.“ -Mary Poppins
I did a search for Andrea Scher because I love her and wanted to see where else I could find her on the net. During this search, I found a wonderful online zine called Be Real. Could there be a better place to express oneself? Andrea is this month’s featured artist. Her photography is so lovely and inspiring and the articles by some of the other contributors are terrfic. Time for me to get busy on writing my own article. Being Real has been a lifelong journey for me and I’m still on that path.
