Melissa Stephens Art

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
George Eliot

Early in 2024, while enjoying New Year’s with our family in Jackson, Wyoming, I stumbled upon a gallery shop and was instantly wowed by the artist’s vibrant paintings of animals (Amy Ringholz). Since I don’t have the wall space nor the budget for one of her large, original paintings, I opted to purchase her children’s book, Rabbit and the Crown of Dreams. In its colorful pages, Rabbit’s questing tale is soulfully combined with her gorgeous artwork. I skipped out of the shop, thrilled to have found a lovely souvenir from our holiday. I didn’t think more about it until a few months later when I received a surprise package in the mail, a gift from my niece. It was another children’s book, Maybe, by Kobi Yamada. If you haven’t read it, please do, the artwork is beautiful and the “anything is possible” story is inspiring. I looked at my two new children’s books in light of my 2024 word, PLAY, and thought, why not collect a few more!

I found my next book, The Boy Who Loved Maps by Kari Allen, in a quaint indie bookstore in State College called Squirrel & Acorn. Our middle son was, and still is, a lover of maps and the book’s title pulled on my heartstrings. Then on a visit to Longwood Gardens, I found the glorious Miss Maple’s Seeds, by Eliza Wheeler. Gaining momentum, I began searching the internet and every so often, when I was purchasing vacuum cleaner bags or some other such drudgery, a children’s book would find its way into my shopping cart.

An article on children’s book illustrators in a favorite magazine introduced me to Leo Lionni.  How had I never met his acquaintance before?  He was an amazingly talented author and illustrator of many children’s books, including several Caldecott winners (read more about his belief that individuals, both young and old, could change society here in Smithsonian Magazine). I chose his book, Matthew’s Dream, because the same son of mine who loves maps also happens to be named Matthew. I read it quickly the afternoon it arrived (with the dishwasher pods) and, to be honest, it was just ok.

I chose to re-read it a few weeks ago. It’s nesting season here in the Northeast, time to overwinter, to hibernate, to endure one wintry mix after another, to recline in my La-Z-Girl chair by the cozy fire, and to re-visit my children’s book collection. I paged through Lionni’s collaged illustrations and happily-ever-after story  and realized I was not only reading Matthew’s dream, I was reading my own dream as well!

Matthew was a mouse, whose parents wanted him to grow up to be a doctor. However, on a school field trip he went to an art museum and was mesmerized by the paintings he saw. He came home and told his parents he wanted to be a painter! Because it’s a blissfully simple children’s story, there’s no angsty exchange where his parents tell him he’ll never be able to support himself financially as an artist. Nope, he told his parents his heart’s desire and, on the very next page, he was an artist, painting large canvases “filled with the shapes and colors of joy.” He became famous and, at the end of the story, one of his paintings was hanging in the same museum he visited as a child. It’s title, “My Dream.” (sigh)

To be honest, my childhood dream was to be a marine biologist. I couldn’t swim, and I lived in landlocked central Pennsylvania but that did not deter me from desperately wanting to be a part of “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau!” I never dreamed of being a painter as a child. My art supplies consisted of a box of 64 Crayola crayons with a built-in sharpener, fancy! And I never visited an art museum until I was in my 3^rd year of medical school, well on my way to becoming the doctor my parents wanted me to be. A few of my roommates suggested we visit the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to view a special exhibit on Monet’s haystacks. I tagged along though I must admit, the exhibit was totally lost on me. I mean the guy created painting after painting of haystacks in fields. I didn’t get it. At all! Yes, it’s the very same Monet I wrote about last month, beautiful gardens and “I must have flowers” and all. What I wouldn’t give to revisit that same museum and explore its treasures now. This 60-year-old version of me would be as fascinated as Matthew the mouse in Leo Lionni’s story and would see, in all those shapes and colors of joy, a new, grown-up dream for myself.

In re-reading children’s stories this nesting season I’m finding, like with a set of toy nesting dolls, I’m opening old, outdated versions of myself and revealing exciting, new ones. Carefully tucked inside prior renditions of me as a student, me as a professional caregiver, and me as a mom, I’m discovering new iterations of myself that feel surprisingly childlike in a wonderful, “anything is possible” way.  While these new forms may have the same outward appearance they are, in fact, distinctly different, in more ways than simply size. In each stacked doll I twist open, each uniquely nested version of “me” I unpack, I’m discovering new desires and new dreams, including one quite like Matthew’s. Curiously, though each inner doll is physically smaller than the last, I don’t feel like I’m becoming more constricted. Quite the contrary, I feel like my world and my life are expanding in all the best Alice in Wonderland ways! I wonder if it’s too late to be that marine biologist?

I’m grateful for the words of George Eliot that encourage me it’s “never too late to be what you might have been.” I’m grateful to Leo Lionni and other children’s book authors and illustrators who inspire me, in this nesting season, to open my set of nesting dolls and to discover new dreams hidden inside. I’m grateful to be living my current, grown-up dream of painting “with the shapes and colors of joy.”

PS: Thank you all for the lovely comments on last month’s post, “Why Flowers?” One friend sent to me in a text message, “Why flowers? Flowers are life! They represent rebirth and new beginnings. They are the embodiment of beauty! They give us a sense of wonder and joy. They show us strength, for although they are delicate, they can weather the fiercest of storms and bloom again. Thus, they give us hope.”

Beautifully said!