The Raven

This is a story about art and friendship. Actually, most of life's stories are about that, at least the good ones. This one is about a certain piece I call The Raven and a couple of friends, Erik and Nathanael.

Here's the background: I believe in LGBTQ rights. If and when they add more letters to the ever-growing acronym, I’ll be pro those ones too. I am pro every letter of the English alphabet. Also the Greek one. The Cyrillic one. Chinese. Japanese. Alphabets are incredible, beautiful things that, when the elements are combined, give unending breadth to the unique sentience of Humanity.

My belief in the rainbow alphabet is not something I announce in many places, because I am a Mormon. I’ll not bother with Mormon-splaining that tangled web, but for the purpose of this story, it’s important to know that within the organization of Mormonism, one particular alphabet arrangement is placed above all others. It is the “traditional” family.

I am not simply a supporter of alternative families. I am a believer in the moral okayness of romantic, sexual, and emotional relationships between any consenting adults. You might ask how I square this with the religious doctrine I ascribe to, and the answer is both simple and complex. 

One: I don’t. Two: I also don’t agree with my husband’s deeply held belief that any temperature over sixty degrees is not suitable for habitation. Three: I still love him. Four: I still love my Church.

Nevertheless, this is the backdrop of a conversation I had with a friend of mine, Erik, over Facebook messenger, during the dregs of 2015. I was painstakingly explaining to him my beliefs outlined above. I attempted, with all the familiar letters of the English alphabet, to explain how “standing up for what you believe” is something you do with intent and not incidentally. It is not always reactionary, and the most effective declarations are planned, their consequences considered against all of the available variables so that “standing up” happens when people are actually paying attention to you. If you “stand up” in a room full of shouting people, chances are nobody will notice or care. If I believe in something, then I attune my actions to reflect that belief. I don’t simply… speak for the sake of hearing myself.

The resulting accusation from Erik was that I was too “Chicken” to brazenly announce to the entire world that I and my company were pro-LGBTQ. Looking back, the insult is pretty hilarious, and knowing Erik’s extensive experience with foul language and insults in other realms of his life, I recognize now that he was trying to be gentle with me about it. But at the time, in trying so hard to explain my reasons, my intention, and my plans for my and my company's "beliefs", the response that I was simply “afraid” was offensive in the extreme. Considering how close of a friend I considered Erik, that he, of most people, knew my life in an RV consisted of nothing but things regular people would be terrified of, it was a slap in the face.

I was pissed. And hurt. Mostly hurt, because there is nothing more painful and hopeless-feeling than being misunderstood by someone you respect.

I am not someone that holds grudges, and I don’t typically avoid people I’ve disagreed with. I get over things pretty quickly, but with Erik, I felt like he had misunderstood the essence of my being, because he just didn’t CARE what kind of faith crises I had endured to get to where I was, how much I had given UP to hold the beliefs I did. I subconsciously built it up to be this betrayal of friendship and trust. Oh yes, I was angsty over it. Melodramatic. All that. But really, what real disagreement isn’t that way? It’s just so EASY to turn a simple misunderstanding into a rivalry of Montagues and Capulets. Guns come out. People die. Wars begin. I’m always telling my kids they get mad at each other over the DUMBEST things. “He touched my foot!” “She shoved my blanket!”

WTH, people. WTH.

I’m getting side-tracked again.

I ignored Erik’s existence for a while. A month or something like that. Just thinking about it got my blood boiling again, and life was just less hopeful because one of my best friends had called me a a giant P-word. 

Oy.

And so here the story really begins. In 2015, Brad and I often did two conventions on the same weekend. We’d split up the kids in various ways, usually two and two. Sometimes boys against girls. Sometimes bigs and against littles. That weekend I just had Iyov (which, by the way, is my favorite kind of split-up). 

While Brad did New Jersey Comic Expo, I went to Super MegaFest in Framingham, Massachusetts. There are lot of memorable things about that weekend. Iyov and I camped out in the van I’d rented. It was a Ford Transit like the one we have now. I bought Iyov a blue and green sleeping bag for the occasion, one that was supposed to be appropriate for below freezing weather. It wasn’t, by the way. Or maybe I just don’t get how those rating systems work. Or maybe it was the fact that he wouldn’t stay in the thing. And he wouldn’t stay in the thing because he was sick. He threw up three times in the back of the van that first night. Did I mention it was twenty-five degrees out? It was COLD, and I’d left more than half of the blankets with Brad and the other kids in New Jersey who had the RV. I was miserable. The puke. The hard floor of the van. Puke on the hard floor of the van. It was a carpet-upholstered hard floor. Even better for the puke clean-up. I can’t decide if the puke or the cold was worse. Even if I HAD been warm, I couldn’t sleep because I worried if I was unconscious too long, Iyov would shimmy out of the sleeping bag again and freeze to death. And if I hadn’t been awake for it all, I probably would have been puked on.

Can I say ‘puke’ one more time?

Sigh. 

Fine. Dear Jesus, thank you for the cold, cold, cold night so that I didn’t get puked on. Thank you that I was too stupid to bring more blankets or those likely would have been puked on, too. Plus, it’s hard to smell puke in 25 degree weather. Amen.

The other memorable part of that weekend was Nathan. I’d hired him to come down from where he lived in Maine to help me run my booth. The Colorworld Book Tour had recently broken the barrier from “just making it week to week” to “Holy crap, this thing is getting really big really fast.” We were busy at conventions, often too busy to handle all the customers at once. We’d had a lot of very profitable conventions in a row, and since Brad and I were working separate conventions, we both needed to make sure we had help. 

Super MegaFest was not a first year convention. It had a good following. We expected a good weekend. But it wasn’t. Like the van camping expedition, nothing went as planned. There was no loading dock to use. I had to carry in my eight pieces of 8-foot grid wall by hand, across a vast parking lot, through a pair of glass doors at the front that did not open automatically. Because we’d so recently started using gridwall, I wasn’t as physically strong then as I am now. It was grueling. I had no strength in my arms by the end of it. I couldn’t tell you how I managed. The dealer room wasn’t a room, but a collection of them—a labyrinth for customers, if you will. The lighting was bad. The ceiling was low. This didn’t look good. That evening I would sleep with vomit on my hands.

The next day, opening day, Nathan didn’t show up. After several confusing text messages and a phone call, we realized we’d had a major miscommunication. He had thought he was supposed to help with a different convention, one that was happening two weeks later in Massachusetts. 

Nathan came through though. He rearranged his schedule. He found a sitter for his kids. By midday, he showed up in a furry, red hat-wig, ready to assist me in… not selling much of anything.  

Nathan and I also barely knew each other. Our paths had first crossed in North Carolina years earlier, but I’d interacted with his wife, Kelly, far more often. I’d first met her in church in the nursing room. She had these big dangly earrings, layers of colorful threads, and hair in one of those absolutely perfect messy buns most of us covet. In the meeting later, as an introduction to the class, she set herself apart and made me take notice. She rambled for a while, just shy of being awkward, about a life of addiction, leaving a bad relationship, becoming a blended family, and how she and her husband were the kind of people that said things that got them in trouble.

I liked her from the first awkward declaration, but I was terrible at being a social human in those days. So I failed at really becoming her friend. I knew Nathan as a quiet guy, sort of in the background of Kelly’s more overt presence. We moved and so did they, and it was only because of Facebook that I kept up with either of them after that.

I know I was not in the best spirits that day, considering my night and how badly the sales were going. I know we talked of homeschooling, parenting, and living a life outside the mold. I know that I hoped he wouldn’t ask me where I was staying, but he did, and I had to admit we were sleeping in the van out back. I wasn’t ashamed of it; I just didn’t want people to feel sorry for me.

Sleeping in a van was not something that happened to me. I had chosen it. I was doing it to save resources, to spend my money on my dreams rather than my comfort. I was doing it because overcoming gives me a high. I was doing it to prove myself. I was doing it because I enjoy snubbing my nose at societal norms. I had spent so much of the tour up to that point actually destitute, lacking in options. There I was finally on top of things (comparatively) and people couldn’t see anything but the horror of sleeping in a van. To me, that view was so very limited. In my head, it was more like this:

“Okay, Rachel! Tonight, let’s not be a dumbass. Have the puke bag ready and set your alarm for every two hours. You’ll run the van at intervals to heat up the place, and you’ll share your sleeping bag with Iyov. Don’t forget multiple clothing layers! Don’t you remember Nebraska in the RV? It was -10 there! It’s only getting down to 30 tonight! Stop being such a baby!”

I’m not saying it was my best sleep in a van ever (that time was in Rhode Island), but it wasn’t the worst either. I did it. And once I did it, I spent a lot of that Sunday of the convention on my own thinking about it. The whys. Why was it so important to me? In the end, I felt like I’d engaged in a silent protest that no one knew about. I believe societal norms ought to be broken, but I might as well have stood up for that in a room with shouting people for all the good it had done.

Nathan sent me a text message that I didn’t see until later that Sunday:

So... Last night I had actual insomnia. It wasn't just not wanting to go to bed. I couldn't sleep cause all I could think of was you two in that van in the cold. I really regret not getting you a hotel room. That being said I want to do more to help. Forgive me if this is one of those really long messages but I want to say what's on my mind. I think you're awesome. Helping yesterday really reinforced that opinion. Your courage for doing the #cwbt and following the prompting to keep it up. It's admirable. And homeschooling, hearing you talk about your kids learning styles and that you know your kids enough to see that is awesome. I think you're a great mom and doing well. When I first saw that you wrote a book, as an English major, I was skeptical. But when I saw your writing style and creativity I was super impressed. I'm glad that Brad sees that too because he's right, you are an amazing writer. Don't be afraid to tell people that the books are awesome, cause the are! Your story really is as incredible as your writing too. You can't make this RV stuff up. :) I know it's been so hard and I really feel for you in that but I believe in you. I want you to know that. I think you're an awesome mom. You certainly have one awesome little boy to prove it. His manners and passion for life and courage speak volumes to what you are doing. … Thank you for inspiring me to do more and to be better in life. You really have in a lot of ways. I hope today is awesome for you! You guys are in my thoughts and prayers! Once again you're doing great! 

It is very hard to live with nothing. It’s even harder to choose to live with nothing. It’s hard to be perceived in a way that’s inaccurate. It’s hard to be the only one that sees the future that you have fixated on, that you’ve given up the comforts of now to bring that much closer. Yeah, Nathan felt sorry for us, but the genuinely kind intent was there. I needed it. My heart softened toward people in general, and I was ready to do it all over again. It didn't really matter that Nathan didn't quite understand my feelings and my reasons. He didn't quite understand me. He cared though. That was obvious.

About the time I got Nathan’s message, someone came to my table and admired the Raven print. Sometimes people will react to artwork in a way that you know it’s speaking to them beyond simply the character. I could tell it was that way for her.

“Of all the pieces that we sell, the Raven is my favorite,” I told her as I bagged it. “I’m not even a fan of Raven or the Teen Titans. I think it’s that my good friend Erik made it. It makes me think of what I love about him every time we sell it, more than any of his other pieces.”

I caught myself there. Thinking of Erik. The Raven is a watercolor piece. It took many months to convince Erik to sell to us the rights to print it. After the customer left, I stared at it, and my eyes got misty, and I forgave and fell in love with my friend Erik all over again. I remembered the conversation I’d had with him about it right after he made it. I had told him it was brilliant. And we were talking about why he was having so much trouble coming up with a concept for the Sailor Moon I’d asked for.

He had said: “Some things I make for me. Those ones come easy. Like the Raven.”

Erik, like all artists, cannot produce genius on demand. It is something I have fought against while on tour. Writing is not a process I can force. I do the work, put in the research time, watch people, ponder questions, sit in front of the screen. I have been known to write and delete a chapter ten times before it finally comes. I got what he was saying. He and I share a mutual understanding of this.

I have often wondered why visual artists have such a hard time producing. You need a character. You make the character. You don’t have to come up with a new one. But in reality, people want one of two things: 1)The same thing they’ve always seen 2)Something they’ve never seen that speaks to their soul.

#2 is where genius resides. #2 is the hardest to get right. #2 is where fulfillment lies, as an artist. Erik strives toward #2 more earnestly than any artist we work with. He’s worked longer in the industry than any of them, and he has seen more setbacks in his career than any of them. Erik was also the very first artist who believed in the Colorworld Book Tour, donating a huge number of pieces for us to sell so we could survive. He saw what we were doing before anyone else did. So what if he didn't understand every part of my life. Like Nathan, he cared. A lot.

That night after I’d loaded my van back up, I apologized to him for avoiding him.

I couldn't tell you why exactly the Raven has always spoken to me, why of all the pieces we've ever carried, I've always considered it aesthetically superior. By now, it's so entwined with my feelings about my friend, Erik, it will probably never be surpassed. With it also comes the reminder that relationships are never 100% perfect. There's always work to be done, and it's irrelevant whether or not we are always understood. Friendships are such a large part of stories because they grow and change.

Erik’s work also reminds me that genius does not come on demand. Experience by experience we build up kindling with which to light those fires that become masterpieces. As Erik likes to say, "You can't have output without input." Sleeping in vans, getting puked on, missing help, followed by terrible sales at a convention is fodder for one heck of a story. But the friendships are what made all of that an actual story worth telling.

The Raven by Erik Lervold