Sprained Ankles Lead to The Happy Painter

I've always been a klutz. I trip, I fall, I knock things over. Sprained ankles were a regular part of my childhood experience. Same goes for burns, cuts, and unexplainable bruises. I think I've mentioned before that I am not allowed to handle the knives in our house. When we first started dating, Keith was appalled by my propensity for sticking bare hands into hot ovens, running into walls, slicing off inches of skin. If you left me alone long enough in a rubber room with a baby's teething ring, I'm sure I could manage some way to do inadvertent and unintentional bodily harm to myself.

So it should come as no surprise that moments after hitting publish on my last post, I managed to horribly wrench not just one, but both of my ankles. My sweet brother had picked me up at the hotel and we were on our way to lunch and an afternoon of hanging out and catching up. We were leaving a restaurant with kind of "leveled" parking. There was a big (read: three foot) drop from one level to the next, which my buff little brother (he was in the army, and he works out every day, and drives a pedicab) neatly stepped over. Rather than go all the way around to the stairs, I attempted to follow him. The next thing I know my dress is up nearly over my head and I am on the ground, both ankles rolled underneath and throbbing in pain, hands scraped, knees bruised, pride absolutely demolished.

It took a few moments to gather my composure, another few to convince myself that my ankles would actually bear weight, and then another few for my sweet brother to assist me in hobbling to the car. Once he had me settled safely inside and taken care of he turned to me and said, "Why would you even do that? You should never do anything like that!" To which the answers were obviously "I have absolutely no idea, because you're right, I totally shouldn't ever do anything like that!" I just wasn't thinking beyond the fact that, my brother had just made it look so easy and it would be so much shorter than going all the way around.

It wasn't long before he had me on his couch, swollen ankles propped up on pillows with a big bag of ice. We chatted for a while, then started channel surfing, and finally landed, riveted, on the man we call The Happy Painter. Anyone who hasn't lived under a rock for the past thirty years or so will instantly know who I mean. The Happy Painter, Bob Ross, the kindly man with the 'fro who taught painting on PBS, who painted "happy little clouds" and "happy little trees" on his show, the Joy of Painting.

I remember loving The Happy Painter as a kid. I don't know if it's the calming manner, the soothing voice, the rhythmic brush strokes, or just his incredibly optimistic point of view, but I was always entranced when The Happy Painter came on. And it turns out, I still am. Hunter and I got completely absorbed in his show, watching him transform colors into forms and shapes while dispensing wisdom like, "Don't worry about exactly how the paint goes on, just let it do what it wants to do," or "Even if you mess up it's okay because we learned something today."

I think watching Bob Ross may be one of the best forms of therapy available. I know that if I watched his show every day, I would be a much better, calmer, kinder, and more patient person. So I started out bummed over a sprained ankle that meant no fun time outdoors, and ended up so thankful that I got to spend half an hour with The Happy Painter. I guess Bob was right, "Even if it doesn't turn out the way you meant it to, it's okay. You'll find something beautiful in it."