When You Have Eliminated the Impossible

When you have eliminated the impossible, what ever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
-Sherlock Holmes 

'The Game'

I spend four long days drawing Sherlock.  Eating food.  Drawing Sherlock.  Going to the bathroom.  Turning the sink grey from the led on my hands.  Refining Sherlock's cheek bones.  curling and uncurling my fingers, trying to find feeling in my stone stiff hands.  Re-refining Sherlock's cheek bones.

Finally, an hour before it was too late to enter the contest, I finish my work, slap it into a cheep frame, drive to the library (accomplishing a sexy parking job) and drop off my baby at the beauty contest.  My baby is also rather small, gray and less refined as the hundreds of other colorful, beautifully detailed pieces of art that surround.  Hang in there Mr. Homles.

A week later Mom greats me with a 'I have something super exciting to show you' smile, and shows me the email that says I won an award. Victorious again, good ol' Sherlock Holmes!  

My Mom's laughing.  Because the email says, 'Congratulations Elemis and her teacher Shelley.  

"Like I'm your art teacher.  Ha!  Yup, definitely.  I taught you all you know!  It was hard.  I said, 'here's a paper and a pencil.  Go for it.'  I could start giving art lessons.  $20 an hour.  Just show up with some paper and pencils and do what ever you want."

I laughed too.  

And they tell Mom to stand up during the award ceremony today, and she receives an applause.  She thinks its hilarious.

You know, I wouldn't have entered that art contest if she hadn't shown me the article.  I would't have been able to if she hadn't given me those four days to draw my heart out.  I probably would have quit if she hadn't said, "Here's a paper and a pencil.  Go for it."

I would have wimped out on many auditions.  

I say, "My song and monologue aren't good enough and there's no time to find a new one."
Mom says, "My advice...Just do it."

I wouldn't have found some of the greatest theater groups if it weren't for her.  

Long story short, Mom thinks it's silly that she would be called out when she really isn't an art teacher.  

But maybe she doesn't realize, and I sometimes fail to realize, just how much different my life would be if she never told me anything like, "Here's a pencil and a paper.  Go for it."

Character of the Month:  Mom