Thelonious' Painting

I gave a tour yesterday. During the tour we encountered artwork made by our "locals." One woman on the tour asked about a specific piece and Lynda, the director of the art center, sighed, "Oh yes... Thelonious made that quite a while ago but he's working on it again. He's changing it." "Changing it?" I asked. "Yes. There used to be the four horsemen of the apocalypse. But now, you can see, one of them is a businessman wearing a tie."

I did see that. I looked closely and could also make out where the previous figure had been. But I really had to look for it and it wasn't obvious. I probably wouldn't have seen it if I didn't know he'd changed it. Lynda and the woman on my tour continued in conversation about the piece and the art room in general. But I couldn't get over that Thelonious was CHANGING his painting.

"What about the way it used to look? I mean, did someone at least take a picture of it?" I asked. "Oh yes," Lynda replied. "We take pictures, don't worry. Art is dynamic, Judi. It's always changing." I joked about my tendency to like things to stay the same, just as they are. Everything neat and orderly and in its place. I'm not even sure that's entirely true about me but my comment elicited a couple of laughs, as I'd hoped, and the tour moved on, as was necessary. But I'm still thinking about that painting and the fact that Thelonious is changing it and I'm trying to figure out why. That is, why am I still thinking about it?

Is my life a painting that really I need to pull out and change? My life HAS changed. I've changed jobs, changed my relationship status, changed my mailing address...

It is time to change the painting. Actually, the painting has already changed.

So why am I still thinking about this?

(By the way, the artist's name wasn't Thelonious. But it reminded me of that name. I remember that name from the movie Babe: Pig in the City. And since Thelonious was also a jazz musician, I decided to employ artistic license and use the name in my story.)