A short dialogue with a Painter

He was once a businessman, running a quite successful small business in Holland. He is married with 2 children, Jessica and Marteen. He woke up every morning, went downstairs for a cup of coffee and made pancakes for the children. On the lazy days, he stayed upstairs faking his sleep to let his wife, Rieke, fed the children. He loved his life more than anything. He loved his routines. He loved his stressful work and to see his secretary having a secret affair with a guy on the 2nd floor. He loved his weekends in the garden during spring with his children, with his mother overlooking them from the veranda. It was obvious when people saw him walking in the neighborhood, or walking through the office corridor, or in the supermarket busy with his plastic bags, or just jogging around the corner, they definitely would say 'a good life is his life' and that always left a slight smile on their faces.

Until one day, on Wednesday morning, in a windy spring. It was no way an ordinary wind that day. That day trees were down, people are sent home and forced to be home, no school and children playing outside, instead of blossom flower, the wind took the flower along. For him it was like the other business day. He was on the way to a business appointment. He took his car. He listened to his new U2, and did not turn his news-switcher on, that made him isolated from the latest news. He was on the road, 80km/h, and it was raining cats and dogs. The phone suddenly was ringing, once, twice, third times, and....

still. silence was all over him. silentness. mute. nothing.

Three weeks after that, all he knew was that something bad happened that day. How, when, what, no one knew exactly. The doctor said that there were some damages with his skull that had impacted his way of thinking. That made working in a company was no longer an option. For him, for his family, for his company too, that day was the longest day of his life.

He was then referred to a psychiatrist, and spent hours of talking with him. About life, love, money, past, future, children, mother, any single thing he could think about. One day he was asked to stop seeing the psychiatrist and left with a single piece of advice, "find your hobby to make yourself happy again".

It was the most absurd thing he ever heard. He hated the psychiatrist for leaving him, for letting him thought that life is hard again, even harder. He then stayed home. He started watching TV. boring. He moved to radio. boring. He started with photography. Too expensive after a while. Then cooking. Tasteless. Then reading. His eyes got tired after thousands of books and his brain got full. Then music. Still music. Stayed a while in the music. Pretty good one. Then he got inspiration to paint. Red. Blue. Green. Lines. Circles. People. People. Women. Monster. Anything. He fell in love, with painting.

He continued going back and forth a hobby shop around the corner to buy another canvas, sometimes the guy gave him something for free. Black canvas, new type of acrylic, painting books, story about painting, some brushes, even glass palette. His painting started to make his small apartment full of his painting. He then started to go around the neighborhood to sell his painting. To a tall guy with a nerd daughter. To a former business partner, he sold a big one. To an artist who is a cousin of his former supplier. To his children's teacher. He gave three also to his children's school. One to the city library, the darkest one because he thought the library was too colorful. One, the one with a lot of yellow on it, to his mother, because he thought his mother shines for some reasons. And one, the one he liked the most, he wrapped that for his 14th marriage anniversary, and gave it as a surprise present to his wife.

He enjoys painting.

It has been five years since those days. Now, he lives in Belgium in a small city about three hours from Holland. He paints for living, with a title of 'Levenskunstenaar' stated on his brochure and business card. He does abstact most of the time, with people as the centre of the story. He is invited by big companies to paint for them. His creations now are hung on companies' wall. He paints around 40 paintings every year. His life is back. Some differences here and there. No fake sleep anymore. No 9-5 in the office. No secretary. No weekdays and weekends. His days are just days, where he can work on the weekends and sleep on the weekdays. Although those are not parts of his life anymore, 4 people are still the same, Rieke, Jessica and Marteen. Once again, smile has been brought to his, their life. Once again people look at them and say 'a good life is his life', with an additional thought of 'when you can do what you love to do'.

He is back on business, without supplier, without partner, without office. Just the business. He calls his new life, an enjoyable life.

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This story is based on a short dialogue with an artist, Pim Smit, who told me to not think when I start paint, in Eindhoven, while he was painting in a food court during lunch hour, on a windy shiny spring of Holland.