I’ve got this fabulous set of coloured pencils, each distinctive barrel displaying an empowering word. From BIRTH to DEATH, all significant emotions and expressions are included. Even without the words the colours are magnificent.

I don’t use coloured pencils a great deal. I use a blue pencil when editing hard copy, and a red one to draw attention to important notations in the margins. Sometimes, or occasionally, I will add a little colour to my journal pages to differentiate words or highlight a quote, but then I will use a random selection from a collection that has accumulated through the years.

But I never use this one specific set of pencils. I do pull them out of the desk drawer and look at them once in a while. Pointy, precise, and virginal; I admire them and then tuck them away. These are special pencils and are to be used only for special occasions.

For four years these pencils have been sitting in the original packaging. Still. Waiting. Idle.

Pencils are not inanimate objects. A pencil has a purpose and is designed to be used; each one is meant to spread colour and brighten up a page. Every pencil is designed to be worn down and then sharpened, and re-sharpened, and used, until it can no longer be.

This particular set of pencils just sits there looking pretty.

I think we all have items like these pencils, things we keep tucked away for a special day. There’s that crisp shirt or blouse hanging in the closet, a watch or piece of jewellery, or the flask of rum or bottle of fragrance we believe is best suited for one of those occasions that does not happen every day.

Everything we own has been designed or manufactured for a reason. To not use something is to not realize its potential; imagined or otherwise. To wait is to waste.

We all hang onto stuff, our possessions, our thoughts, all waiting for the right time. Sometimes that time does not arrive or is postponed or put off, so the stuff remains and so does the question.

What is more special than this day?

Are we not breathing?

Have we all not passed through obstacles or accomplished something worthy of recognition? We’ve made it through to yet another year, are these not days to be celebrated? Is that not significant?

Is each day not special?

Maybe, by using those things we keep stored away, we will make each day a little extraordinary, a little different from the ordinary.

I’m going to take the pencils out of the acrylic case and put them to use. If I get a kick out of reading BALANCE or JOY in big block letters, will I not easier find my PEACE or a little more FREEDOM by writing with a pencil where the intention is clearly spelled out?

Today is the first day of making special happen. I’m going to add a little more colour to my life and appreciate each exceptional stroke that I leave on the page.

I may even colour outside of the lines.

Each street has a function, a name, and familiarity
to someone. Not merely a destination, but a place on which lives
are lived. More than lines on a map indicating territory, a street
defines a place. Vehicles drive and humans wander, tripping through
what others leave behind. Cigarette butts, empty bottles, and dog shit
reminders that we are not alone on this path. The human race,
not without a whisper or trace of humanity.

Traffic patterns become the regularity marking our time,
coming and going on the same street, the same route, the pedestrian
nature of what we do, and how we live. We travel with frequency
along indistinguishable streets to get done what we need to, and enjoy it
as we can. Little happens at night, silence stretching to fill the space as
taxicabs and cowards leave little light behind. You can’t imagine streets
not being there, yet man and beast travelled before they existed.

Fate or destiny, missed turns along the way. Calm or cold,
you decide if it is late, or early, when you arrive. Even rush hour moves
forward. Lanes merge and we struggle with speed and direction.
Congestion on major arteries, blood pressure measured with the click of
the turn signal. We come to dislike traffic and our place in it. There is
no point between A and B, frustrations articulated by the contrast. We each
have an address and every street takes somebody home.

                Without direction from the
             soon-setting Sun, drawn not by the pull
         of the Moon, it flows past murky shadows
 shifting into place, and passes by the sweep of trees.
          The river remains constant.
      Showing itself, ripples and bubbles, only
  when convenient. Beneath the frozen surface,
                 a flurry of activity within each body of water
                 it passes through.
                 Neither transient or untenable
          it knows not whether it will end up in the sea,
   or be channelled through tributaries
                to a gentle stream, sparkling lake, or
 come to rest in a stagnant swamp, eventually
                     seeping into the aquifer, or evaporating
        and ending up as a puddle in a far-away city.
                    The cycle begins again.
                     Wanderlust.
              The river does not know the power it contains,
      yet continues to move.
      There is no silence.
          The stillness is never complete as we,
 minute by day, year over year, seek purpose.
     And balance. Under this Solstice,
               the Sun shedding it’s grace for such little time,
              traversing through to darker hours, as we are.
         Or as we can,
         in this semi-frozen state, craving comfort
      which comes from removing ourselves
 from the elements.
                        Man-made darkness, the shelter
               in which we hide, or rest, or plot how
           we will better face the day, and the year ahead.
 Each of us is searching, or knowing, or
                                     finding our ocean.
                                     Neither temporary
     or transient. A natural rhythm, the planets revolving
 as they should, each cycle, each pattern,
         each evolution.

©2016 j.g. lewis

A few weeks back the headline news in this country was all about a painting that sold at auction for a breathtaking $ 11.2 million dollars.

Now it’s pretty easy to say the sale of Mountain Forms by Lawren Harris – member of The Group of Seven – was the greatest testimonial to the man’s talent.

There are also those who speculate that this major feat (more than doubling the amount paid for the last record-breaking Canadian painting) will throw the international spotlight onto our vibrant cultural scene.

But, fact is, the majority of us don’t view art as this sort of commodity. Most, or many, of us do not purchase art as a financial investment, but rather as something that will brighten up the living room decor, add colour to our lives, and make beauty readily available. Even those with deeper pockets, and who chose art as an investment, generally, purchase a painting first for its visual nature.

Before looking at a price tag, a painting must appeal to the senses (first of all the eyes) and then to the emotions. Art must capture our imagination in some way, like hoar frost or a vast starry night. Colours, composition, subject and style, yes, it is all important, but the pure gut instinct of whether we like it or not is more based on a feeling than anything else.

The amount we spend on art isn’t even directly related to how much we love it. I have many pieces collected through the years, of many different values, but my true favourite was painted by a five-year-old, and it is priceless.

Art is subjective and, in so many ways, that is also its beauty. One piece will not appeal to two people in exactly the same way. Art allows us to think, whether abstract or impressionist, and it takes us to places outside of our everyday three-dimensional lives.

The moment a value is attached to art, the moment it is commoditized, perceptions are altered. No longer do we ask ourselves whether we like it or not, we begin to wonder instead if it really is worth the asking price.

In no way am I saying that art does not have a financial value. In fact, money is crucial to supporting the arts and the artists, but there cannot be an expectation that a painting will steadily increase in value, or will fluctuate like stocks and bonds. We cannot expect that Canadian art, as a brand, should now ride this exciting wave of commercial viability.

The art scene here will continue to prosper and grow, as art does, reflecting the personality and the climate in which it is created. There will still be legions of painters who eke out a living or a sideline business selling canvases for $300 – $900 (or much, much less) from the walls of the local coffee shop. This is work that is original, and viable, and available.

And yes, there are some (but far, far fewer) artists capturing tens of thousands of dollars for their images and imagination at privately-owned fine art galleries.

But, all of a sudden, multi-million dollar masterpieces will not be any more common now than they were last year or five years before that.

The only expectation we should have of art is that it affects us, in some way. It’s only then that we know its worth. We should not buy a painting only because we think it might make us money, we should simply purchase the art because it makes us happy.

I knew him.

We were not friends, but the friends we each ran with moved within the same circle. I knew his twin sisters as well, with the same familiarity. We went to the same junior high school, took no classes together, we were both in a few school plays, and went to some of the same parties and concerts. We were both young, then.

I read his obituary 25 years ago.

I hadn’t seen him in years. I switched schools and had no idea where he was headed. Not until I read the newspaper. His family provided an update of where his life had taken him, up until his time of death.

The obituary also said he died of AIDS.

Those were brave words to include in an obituary a quarter century ago, especially in the rather conservative prairie city we grew up in.

Working as business writer at the daily newspaper and, moved by the honest words of a loving family, I wrote an editorial column about the young man, and about AIDS; about what I knew about the stigma and stereotype surrounding the disease. The column received mixed reaction with many, many angry responses, but some very positive. I also received a phone call from one of his sisters, and then spent a morning with her, talking about her brother, her family, and the disease itself. Ultimately the topic of the day was love.

Outside of the already-published column I knew there was a deeper story and, in between the regular news cycle, spent the next six months of 1991 researching and writing, enough to produce a seven-part series entitled Living With AIDS.

The body of work covered not only the medical, practical, and educational sides of a disease the world was just coming to understand, it included the compassionate side of a couple and a family with first-hand knowledge of how the invasive disease rips a body apart. The series angered some, enlightened many, and rewarded me with a major Human Rights Journalism Award.

December 1st is World AIDS day. It came and went this year and, to me, doesn’t seem to be all that it once was. Yes, you will listen to a few extra features in the media, but AIDS no longer grabs the headlines like it had in the past.

You don’t see the red ribbons on lapels as often as you used to. The charities and organizations founded over the years still exist, and are very active, but they have blended into the societal landscape and no longer stand out as they once did.

A lot has changed over the decades. A lot has been accomplished. AIDS and HIV (the virus leading to AIDS) are still major sexually transmitted diseases, but not the STDs they were 25 years ago.

It is not the same Sexually Transmitted Death.

Since its discovery in 1981, according to the World Health Organization, more than 25 million people have been killed by HIV/AIDS. It is estimated more than 34 million people are living with the disease worldwide, the majority in sub-Saharan Africa. Some news sources indicate even higher numbers.

The statistics are numbing.

There is still no cure for AIDS, but ongoing research has produced drug treatments which no longer just alleviate pain or arrest symptoms. Life is now sustainable, and can be prolonged, for those exposed to, or living with, the disease.

Just last week a major vaccine trial was announced. There have been animal trials previously, and other attempts at vaccines, but this trial provides greater hope than ever before.

This kind of hope never existed for the young man I once knew.

I thought about him last Thursday. I even went through now-yellowed copies of some of the stories I had written so long ago. Yesterday I read the letter the man’s partner wrote to me while I was working on the series. This was a man with whom I spent an entire afternoon on the phone as he shared his stories, and tears, about a man he loved. Together they shared everything, including the same death sentence.

During the months I spent working on the series, this young man’s partner, his sister and brother, and father, opened their lives up to me, offering opinion, reality, support, and a reason for doing what I was doing.

It was a defining period of my career where I learned more about the human condition, and how even the slightest hope keeps people alive. My eyes were opened as a journalist, but more as a human being.