Bob Is My Co-Pilot

Yesterday The Husband sent me a link to this re-mix of Bob Ross, and I think I can say that I've found my artistic guru.

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, the late Bob Ross was a soft-spoken, Southern gentleman hippie who had a painting show on PBS in the 80's. The Parent was a big fan of his show. She was a single working mom whose Saturdays were filled with all the crap she didn't have time for during the week. So in the late afternoon, after the meal planning and grocery shopping and buying us shoes and cleaning the kitchen and ferrying us to friends' houses and cooking something she could freeze for meals later in the week, she would collapse on the ugly beige sofa in our postage stamp-sized TV room and zone out to Bob Ross. He's basically the PBS show equivalent of doing a couple of bong hits. I used to watch it with her sometimes, and smirk in my oh-so-superior punk rock way at his goofy afro, his cheesy nature scene paintings, and his hippie aphorisms.

But to quote another guru Bob: I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.

I have watched this re-mix-- which incorporates the best of Bob's aphorisms into music-- about 24 times in the last 24 hours. I'm not sure if it's meant to be funny, profound, or just a nostalgic tribute to a beloved public television figure who died of cancer far too young... but for me, it's a mantra on creativity that calms and inspires me. The whole thing keeps running through my head, but these lines in particular seem tailor-made for where I am right now with TOB:

This is your world.
You're the Creator.
Find freedom on this canvas.
Believe that you can do it...
'Cause you can do it...


Oh, Bob. I am moved by your greatness.