Howefitz Blog

I was at the swimming pool in the Avon Rec Center with Calli the other day, when I heard a boy of about seven or eight years old talking to someone. He had just jumped off the diving board. The teacher or baby-sitter, I’m not sure which only that he called her Miss … something, asked him if he had dove off of a diving board before.

“Nope!” the boy answered proudly.

“Well, you’re very good at it!” Miss Something said.

“Well,” the boy said, “sometimes I just think about doing something, and then I’m just good at it!”

There was a slightly older girl there, a sister(?), and she and Miss Something laughed at this. I smiled and caught Calli as she came down the small water slide shaped like a giant mushroom.

It’s easy to shrug things like that off as ‘Kids say the darnedest things’, but it resonated with me. The boy’s words bounced around in my head all the way home and did their dance there for a couple of days. It made me reflect on my particular brand of parenting. Do I encourage my kids to try to think of things to do and then be good at them? Do I encourage them to dream their own dreams?

Then the underlying question surfaced: Do I allow myself to dream? Do I think about doing things until I’m good at them? As we get older, many of us realize that we didn’t exactly become what we said we would when we grew up. Some of us still don’t know what that would be. In this time of economic uncertainty and political turmoil, it’s easy to become cynical. It’s easy to believe that you’re just caught up in life’s current and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

There absolutely is something you can do about it. Allow yourself to dream. Then go and do that. Find what makes you happy and pursue it. It’s never too late! I’m sure you’ve seen the stories on the news every once in a while about the ninety-year old person graduating high school or getting their college degree. They always have a story like ‘I got married and had kids and felt like I didn’t have the time.’ But they kept dreaming, and they achieved their goals. Have something on the back-burner that you really wanted to do? Go do it. Now.

“Keep your dream alive

Dreamin’ is still how the strong survive.”

-’Once Upon A Time In New York City’ from Walt Disney’s ‘Oliver & Company’

I’ve decided to keep dreaming, that is why, within the next few weeks, I hope to launch my first online comic. I tweeted this at the beginning of last week, but blogging it makes it feel more real. Dreams have more power the more people you share it with. I learned that from Kermit the Frog.

I’ve had this character in my head for the better part of a year, and I’m just about ready to let her loose in to the world. We’re both a little nervous, but I know she’ll do great. I still don’t have home internet yet, but I can’t wait to get this going and I’ll do my best to keep to a regular schedule. I hope that schedule to be Monday, Wednesday, and Sunday, with my regular blogs still appearing every other day. I hope you’ll join me in the adventure. In the meantime, enjoy a peek at my sketchbook, and by all means, let me know what you think…

I should be emarassed of these design sketches, but here they are for all the world to see...

This is closer, but probably not final...

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