Best/Worst

Recently I was filling out a rather long interview-esque application which contained questions about me and my work as an artist/designer.  I joked that the application was so large and some of the questions so personal and in depth that if I were to enter therapy in the near future I would just hand a copy to the the doctor and he would have all the information.   Two of the questions, in particular, came to mind as being pertinent to my new blog presentation, and were to the effect of "describe your best day" and "describe your worst day."   With my new format here I thought it very appropriate to share my answer(s) with you.

Maia Chavez Larkin original illustration.

June 2011.

I spent a long time thinking about these two questions and the use of intense comparatives to describe two specific days in my life.  Without a doubt there have been exceptionally wonderful days and desperately difficult days in my life.  When I matriculated college or had my first gallery show, or the first time I had a wholesale jewelry order over $5,000, certainly these are days that glow neon in my memory.  

In stark contrast I had a number of friends commit suicide in high school, or that sad day one April when my grandfather died, and then the stormy night our house flooded in Mississippi a couple years ago; those were the darker times.  The reason I shy away from intense descriptors like “best day/worst day” is that I’ve learned that things can always be worse.  Inevitably though, with time, they will turn around for the better.  I have learned to find pleasure in the little things: I garden almost everyday,  I play with our dogs (who I treat like my children, because my heart knows no better), and  I sit by the pond I’ve built every morning and try to think of something I’m grateful for (this clears my mind to begin the work).   

Some of the moments I’m most fond of in my life thus far are the smallest: driving over the Talmadge bridge in Savannah, alone, listening to Lois Armstrong’s "La Vie en Rose," or a particular Sunday morning with the pups and Dan.  

It’s not the loudest days that burn the brightest.