Jack and Sebastian waved excitedly as they saw one another by the dock. It had felt such a long time since they had been together, but as they greeted one another with warm hugs and laughter aboard the sailboat, it was like old times again. As they sailed out of the bay towards an open horizon, they talked excitedly of the possibility of new adventures to come.
04.15.2021
These friends get to see one another again after some time having their separate experiences. Some part of Jack and Sebastian has held some processing for me about friends taking different paths. I have cherished different seasons of life where I got to walk closely with various friends, and I’ve struggled when our paths diverged. It is always a great gift when a good conversation or a shared adventure comes about with these friends. Even though we’re all journeying in unique directions, I enjoy that we still get to keep building our friendships along the way.
That being said, the best solution I have found for myself was to marry a best friend and then spend most of your free moments dreaming about and planning adventures together. My wife and I love to talk about trips we’d like to take, things we’d like to see, and projects we’d like to work on. We lean into those with the work we do and how we rest and play, and the dreaming and doing are some of my favorite things. So thankful for my faithful companion—she’s a true champion.
Visiting the shores near their home, Sebastian would look out to see if he could catch a glimpse of Jack.
04.14.2021
This illustration makes me think of three things: the red clay in the ground where I grew up, the coast of Maine, and Meghan Follows as Anne of Green Gables, walking out on the White Sands of Prince Edward Island.
I had recently been driving back to visit my parents in southern Missouri. At one point, my brother and I were driving and we passed through an area that had just had some roadwork done. I could see the orangey-red soil that had been turned over, scattered with cream-colored rocks. Grass will grow over it before too long, but it piqued up some channel in my memory—the clay in the ground.
I had never been to the northeast part of the U.S. until I got married and my wife and I honeymooned at a cabin in Maine. The little towns along the coast seemed so charming and at the same time strange to me. I had never been around harbors or shipyards or lighthouses. My wife and I were both incredibly sick over the trip, but it was my honeymoon, so I mostly just remember all the wonderful things. My brother and sister-in-law moved to Maine a few years ago, and it has been awesome to have more cause to go visit that part of the country. We still engage in a fair amount of pipe-dreaming about cabins in Maine.
As I was growing up, my first movie crush was on Anne of Green Gables. I appreciated her one-off creative mind, her boldness, and her compassion for others. She was a fierce character with a determination to seek beauty, and I have a lot of appreciation for those qualities paired together. There are a couple of scenes where she stands in sandy grass overlooking the water. Couldn’t help but think of that too, as this drawing came about.
He saw night skies from distant islands, speckled with starlight over dark seas, and he missed his friend, Sebastian. He decided that it was time to return home to find him.
04.13.2021
A few weeks ago, just after the sun had set, I looked out the kitchen window and saw a beautiful pink bank of clouds hovering just over the skyline. Knowing that my almost four year-old daughter would love to see pink clouds, I called out for her to come outside with me to see them. As we walked out onto the deck, we saw a disc of pink rising, with clouds drifting across as it ascended. It was the moon. We watched it come up until it disappeared behind some thick, grey clouds. We then went back inside and got ready for bed. It was a pink bed, in a pink room, and as we got our toothbrushes, she told her mom about the pink clouds.
There were mornings when Jack awoke to the most beautiful sunrises. The light seemed to pour from the sky onto the water, surrounding him in an endless sea of colors.
04.12.2021
An experience of solitude for Jack in a vast sea becomes the backdrop for a moment of absolute awe as the color of the sky changes all around him. I feel gratitude, thinking of the range of moments in which I’ve witnessed something of the kind. Last night I backpacked up onto a ridge overlooking the Missouri River and made a solo camp for the night. As I sat by the fire and cooked dinner, the sunset was casting all kinds of beautiful color on the treed hills around me. Before I knew it, I was looking up at a clear, starry sky, and I heard a turkey gobble in the distance somewhere. I laughed, thinking of how these turkeys are out chuckling under these grand lights all the time. What a wonder.
Though the beauty of his trip filled his heart with much joy, Jack missed his friend, Sebastian. He began to write to him of the things he was seeing and of how he wished that Sebastian could be there to see them, too.
04.09.2021
Writing letters is not currently a big part of my life, but it has been in other seasons. During college and soon after, letters between friends held lots of encouragement and were an avenue for the processing of idealism and new experiences. As I first began getting to know the young woman who would become my wife, we wrote letters to one another over a summer before meeting up for the first time. In the times when writing and receiving letters seemed a natural mode for communication, I have received much good from them.
Jack is in the thick of living his adventures as well as in the thick of missing his friend. A perfect time for writing a letter.