This morning, I got up and pushed the giant stone labeled “Decrypting Rita” another few inches up the mountain. The Sisyphean labor of this book is almost complete. My reward? I get to get back to work on the next one settling into that comfortable rhythm of spending an hour or three on it most days.
And I just find myself asking: why? Why do I do this?
Well, it’s what I do. I draw. I construct frameworks to give my continued drawing meaning, one way or another. Commissions. Image series. Stories. And I collect these drawings in larger chunks, put them into physical form, and spread them throughout the world as far as I can.
Hoping to touch someone. Hoping to be remembered.
Hoping to be an alert on someone’s phone long after I’ve died, reminding them that tomorrow is my birthday, because my work said something important to them.
(Yesterday was George Herriman’s birthday. Tomorrow is Walt Kelly’s.)
Everything seemed meaningless for years after my father died. And now it feels meaningless again, a year after my mother died. Why do I bother going on? Why do I continue to breathe?
And that’s really all I have. I draw. And I try to turn my drawings into something that the world will remember after I’m gone.
Remember me.