When people see my parents wedding picture: my Dad with the big afro, brown skin and green eyes ….my Mom with a fair complexion – boasting honey kissed  freckles and  strawberry blonde locks.. I often hear-where ever did they meet?

And I say : well in the seventies .

DUH!

They met hangin’ in Hubmboldt Park .

Gazing at the stars , walking past the lagoon listening to the birds sing . 

Holding hands, riding bikes and scribbling on rocks: Cal & Cissy.

It’s really not so weird though- they are both very much the SAME.

My parents are artists you see .  They come from the same planet of PASSION & CREATION. 

They are both musicians: my Dad plays drums and guitar. My Mom piano. 

They both create ART as if it was as natural as: breathing, walking.

My dad: the photographer ,musician, poet ,painter , sketcher, calligrapher, sculptor , gardener- he is each art to the -inth degree. He creates with so much precision and passion that while creating one art form- the other art forms get jealous and say : Hey don’t forget me over here. They try to OUT-ART the other.

My Mom’s artistry came in many forms as well. Growing up, she crocheted blankets after each child was born with love and care: picking out the color and texture. She tended to the house like an interior designer rearranging furniture looking at this angle and that angle and if the sunlight was coming through enough for the plants and if we should buy more plants.

And the piano. The piano understood her beyond words ever could with a vibration that filled the house

And yes, I am absolutely without a doubt the child of artists….

 The devil spawn- angel sparkle of artists.

The sum of :

CREATIVITY

LOVE

PASSION

EXPRESSION

 Both the best and worst magnified exaggerated little concoction 

 of my mother and father-

TIMES TWO-squared -spit out- BLENDED and remixed.

I inherited that desire for EXPRESSION from feeling through every cell in my body -sometimes manifested in tears and wails. I came out crying my parents say. I cried when I came out of the womb and never kind of stopped.

One day when I was young I  thought they left me at the park and I cried and cried only to find my parents laughing near the swings and my dad had snapped a picture too- only to capture my infinite tears with his skilled eye.

When I was older I would recall this park day and my mom would say:  How can you remember you were only two years old.

 I think somehow dad’s pictures had some magical, special ,powers that would make me travel back in time and remember such details like a time machine, movie player freezing the moment.

. He had two antique cameras on the mantle that  we were allowed to play with because they didn’t work anyway. We just had to put them back in the exact right spot.

His cray pas special crayons we were only allowed to touch with supervision, which I had to explain to my friends they were my dads crayons not ours. 

Mommy wasn’t afraid to express herself with tears, and the piano understood and listened and seemed to hug her back giving her strength to transform pain into boundless energy .

Some days Mommy would play the piano crying ,with tears strumming down her cheeks. The music would hug her- kiss her tears until there were no more left . If her eyes were still red and maybe a wee bit puffy-she would just take a sigh and go back to what she was doing. 

We knew by the way she pressed the pedals down and let the sound vibrate extra longer that we should let her be with the the piano. 

On other piano plays we would jump around and dance or lean over her shoulder and sing along. 

If we had a song request we would open the piano seat and pull out our song of choice. If Mommy didn’t know the song yet-she would have to practice. 

We knew how to play real simple songs with one hand reading the notes-not the two hand kind like mommy -but I didn’t care to learn too much because it was more fun to just sing and dance along. 

Dad never cried when he played guitar-or maybe he did but we couldn’t tell because his eyes were closed. It was his soothing time and he would get in such a zone that he wouldn’t hear anything else around him. 

I think Daddy wished we could draw like him. 

He use to make us sit and give us lessons. He had a famous lesson that started with circles. A simple circle would turn from bubbles into grapes or a clown or bouquet of flowers.

My older sister made shapes that resembled more of what our Dad was showing and she seemed to smile and enjoy the paper and pen much more than my attention would allow.

When my eyes shifted from drawing to climbing walls and jumping off sofas Dad had another art form in mind for me. He arrived home one day with a six foot long block of wood that turned into balance beam and kept me occupied for hours and hours that I would have to be called up for dinner as I would forget time with my new best friend.

 Daddy use to make up characters and draw comics.

When it was science project time, Dad would turn our board presentations into an art project. We would spend more money at the art store than the grocery store , buying stick on letter stickers and formations to color in letters and shapes and double sick tape and paper. 

One year dad got the idea to make my board three dimensional! 

He bought some styrofoam so the words would pop out.  I did an experiment on batteries and if they freeze if they can come back to life. Then dad thought it would be funny  to add a funny comic to the science project. 

I wrote a funny comic inspired from the movie Night of the Living Dead and dad drew the pictures of the batteries coming back to life like battery zombies.

Then dad made a three dimensional coffin shape for the top of the science boards to write the title of the project. Did I mention I was in fourth grade? 

We stayed up ALL night to finish the boards. 

Dad was in such a zone. 

 I knew Dad was the kind of artist that would not be able to breathe if he could not create. 

Dad was the kind of artist that needed to create. If art was not a part of his life- I could imagined he would say: you may as well cut off my right arm or poke out my eyes or kill me right now . And not in a dramatic,  I’m being all drama about it kind of way. This is the -for real I NEED  art to exist kind of way .

Because my heart will not pump blood, my lungs will not get filled with air because it IS  my air. My art keeps me alive and gives life to others. I knew this with the gaze in his eyes as he cut paper and measured and placed and replaced each paper in its place like a crazed surgeon not knowing that the clock was passing time.

The day my computer crashed , I knew without any doubt  I was the devil- spawn -angel- sparkle creation of my artist parents. 

The sum of :

CREATIVITY

LOVE

PASSION

 EXPRESSION

Both the best and worst magnified exaggerated little concoction of my mother and father times two squared spit out blended and remixed.

I dropped to the floor screaming at the top of my lungs

MY WRITING IS GONE

GONE GONE GONE

It felt as if someone had stabbed me in the heart -my whole body went numb, my body temperature dropped, my throat choked up and I couldn’t breathe.

My writing was my friend, my security blanket, my soothing notes on the piano, my hug, my release, my air, the blood that pumps to my heart giving me life. 

It’s ok Rebekah, my mom said soothingly. 

I grabbed my laptop running out the door hysterically screaming-

It’s not okay. It will never be ok. 

The blood boiled through my veins and I felt my dads blood. The way he held the pen that seemed to soothe him. The way he could be present while strumming a guitar or sketching a picture. 

I felt my Moms tears. 

The way they would strum down her face while she firmly pressed the pedals filling the room with layers of sound. 

My body shook as I said goodbye to all the words I had written that I could never re -write. Maybe my mom cried this way for people she said goodbye to.  The piano made her feel better. Writing made me feel better the way the piano keys seemed to sooth her. 

I am without a doubt my parents Artist Spawn 70’s Child.