Dream Flight

2010 has been a difficult year, full of love and loss. When dogged by stress and difficulty, I turn to drawings. More often than not, the drawings will take me someplace happier, someplace easier, which for me usually means back to childhood, when we just didn't know any better.
In times of stress, my dreams kick into full gear. It's like having a movie theatre in my head (and generally, those dreams are not very happy). This dream, however, wasn't my own flight of fancy.  My little sister, a talented artist studying animation in her freshman year of college, told me about this dream she had when she was younger.  She dreamt that she was flying through the sky on the back of a rhino...not the sort of vehicle one might expect to ride in a dream.  I was in the process of making drawings for all of my family members, and I thought this one might be perfect for her. Though I am sure the image does not match what she saw as she flew through the sky in her dream, it's how I saw her.  I've made the rhino pulling high up into the sky, above the cloud line, the way a plane flies. I love sitting in the window seat of planes and watching the world pass by.  It's the way I've visited places I'll likely never get to on foot, like Russia, Elba, and Greenland.  My sister is in pajamas, which look less like hers and more like a pair I own. She rides the rhino with ease, bareback, her curly hair blowing in the wind. I imagine it's dawn, and that she sees the rising sun painting the clouds pink and gold. I remember watching the sun rise over the Atlantic once as I flew alone to Italy. The sea was pure gold. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, and this way, I made sure that she could see it, too.

"Dream Flight" Pencil Drawing. Copyright 2011 Jessica Boehman