Note: I’m introducing a third format for sharing in the Substack: pages from my sketchbook, with a few words draped around the edges for context or color or… because it looks better than images alone. Let me know what you think.

A sketchbook is a playing field. A collage is kit of parts with no instructions. Sometimes, you build something and it collapses. Sometimes, it stands up. A collage always surprises. New images and phrases collide in conversations they didn’t expect. Rough woes. Which are feelings we might recognize as the year turns away from past to future.

My oldest kid brought home a can of Mountain Dew. Disgusting. He loved it. Maybe more so for the high velocity, electric design on the can. It was there on the coffee table, so I drew it, and served it with a word salad (another thing collage can do)… A local survey, the results of which were printed in the local free biweekly paper, sums up the community’s sentiment on a number of things: No. But I love the color. No to Mountain Dew. Don’t Know about the word salad. Yes to colorful pie.

Imagine it’s the year 2323. Everything’s fine for everybody. Try it. Say the words: “it’s 2323 and everything is alright.” Does your body not relax a touch? Does your breath not settle into a calm, deep release? Count backwards from 2323. At what year does the anxiety return, the tightening of the chest, the quickening of breath? When is the event horizon for imagining everything will be OK?

On the other side of ‘23, I look for a different value, a different metric for what is good and right. May we organize and conduct ourselves accordingly. May we nurture our relationships, long held and yet to be. May we esteem each other and this noble living world we share. Our Better Nature National Treasure.