March 8,2025

Greetings Resilient Friends,

I was sitting alone in a dimly lit ophthalmologist’s office this week, waiting for my eyes to dilate. There was nothing to do but sit and wait and look around the room. I noticed how the single light above me was throwing oddly shaped shadows on the walls that looked like small furry animals.

Considering myself a resilient person…I was trying to savor the moment… but it was difficult ;)

And then I had a memory of my sophomore year in college. I was an art major, and we had a group of new art professors that had moved from New York to make a name for themselves at our tiny university in South Dakota. And what does this have to do with savoring the moment, you might ask?

Whenever I remind myself to savor the moment, I think of my second year of college, 1968. As an art major, I had taken life drawing in my freshman year; twice a week going to class to draw a bouquet of flowers, or some other randomly arranged still life. The classroom was in an old loft, light, bright, and drafty with high ceilings and full length windows to take advantage of our sunny cold South Dakota winter days.

On the first day of class as sophomores, we all filed into the classroom, about 25 of us, split 50-50 boys and girls. We knew the drill and each other, since we had take the same class last year. Our easels were set up in a semi circle all facing in, with a 4x4, three foot tall pedestal for our still life, as the focal point in the center of the semi circle.

We were getting out our pencils, charcoal, blending erasers, and propping up our giant drawing tablets on our easels, when our new, New York professor walked in. Prof Jeff McManis was his name, and all the girls were immediately swooning over this forty-something very handsome, sophisticated older man.

“Welcome students,” Prof McManis began with his deep, dreamy, New York accent. “We are here with the best of New York art school experience to share and expose you to.” Just the word expose was enough to make the girls sigh again. Remember, it was 1968; maybe some girls had made out with a boy in the back seat, but that was it. We were young and curious, but naïve and petrified of getting pregnant.

The sophomore boys sighed too… but out of boredom ;).

“Today we begin the ultimate life drawing class”, Prof McManis continued. “To draw, you must intentionally look at life, really see it, and savor what you see. Don’t glance at it and then let your mind fill in the blanks. If you do that, you will never be a successful artist. You must become what you are drawing to express life on paper. Draw what you are seeing, but also feeling. That is what a true artist does.”

“Learn to see, and savor what you see, the beautiful and the ugly. This is life speaking to you. And then, and only then, can you interpret it and speak back to the world with your talent. There is nothing less. There is nothing more.”

“Own your vision of life, savor it, and share with the world. This is what an artist does.”

Oh my, we all sighed. He had everyone’s full attention now with his powerful words.

“Two things to remember, if you remember nothing else”, he said firmly. “First, there are no straight lines in our natural world. Only perhaps spider’s silk, the edge of a crystal, or a light beam, but even those are made up of particles and constantly in motion, never straight. Life is change, always in motion, never stagnant or straight. Remember that as you interpret and create on paper the life you see. Nothing in nature is fixed, including you. Take time to savor each moment, as if you want to draw it. A moment will never come again, but there will be many other moments.”

“How you see these many moments will determine your life.”❤️

“And the second thing”…as he continued, a stunning older woman, probably in her 30’s walked in, and made her way to the center of the room. She gracefully step up on the pedestal and sat down on the wooden stool.

OMG…I thought!…She’s wearing a bathrobe! What the heck is going on? Slowly I could tell everyone in the room was coming to the same conclusion. She crossed her legs, and depending on the vantage point, many of us could see the beautiful curve of her upper thigh.

“And the second thing”, Prof McManis repeated, “if you truly learn to draw the human form, you will be able to draw anything.” At that moment, the beautiful woman began to slowly slide the robe off her shoulders and it gracefully slid down around the stool to the floor. And, just like that, she was naked.

I could tell, all the girls felt somewhat embarrassed. But all the boys looked like they had just died and gone to heaven… she was naked and on top of that, her nipples were stiff because… well, it was winter in South Dakota.

“Okay, let’s be mature art students,” Prof McManis said, “I now have faith in your ability to savor this moment as adults, not giggling teenagers.”

We all were silent…even the boys.

“You will be given many challenges in life, and it’s your choice to gain from those challenges or not. Make them a joke, or take them seriously, or explore, or learn from them. This isn’t just a life drawing class, but a opportunity to savor something in life that you might find both beautiful and bothersome, alluring and alarming.

I looked around the room…every single boy was agape, frozen in disbelief, mouth wide open. The girls looked around at each other, at the model, and back at each other. I could hear a silent….We can do this, we can draw, we can be adults. All the girls started drawing. Finally, one by one, the boys drifted back to reality out of their stupor, and looked around the room. As they noticed the girls with charcoal and pencils in hand, they too began to draw.

And…as my thoughts returned to the dim light of ophthalmologist’s office, I realized the serendipity of the moment….

I was getting my vision checked. But it was Prof McManis, fifty some years ago, that taught me how to deeply see, how to savor the moment, and the world.

He also taught us that one of the great joys of life is to expect the unexpected. I’m sure none of us expected to see a beautiful naked woman that morning…

We were all grateful for the experience… especially the boys ;)

We are all in this together, Susan and Mike

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