with armies at her hand

Until my brain remembered a very specific, famous rose in space:

[IMG ID: Art from the story 'Le Petit Prince' featuring the little prince on his asteroid, staring at his rose. There is some French text included that I do not know the translation of. /end ID]

And oh guess what else appears in this story?

A fox that the little prince befriends! In fact they have a very lovely chat about becoming friends and being 'tamed.' There's one quote in particular that comes to mind from that whole conversation, which is very long but all very lovely and useful to this topic but to save time and space I'm just going to C/P this one bit:

"“My life is very monotonous,” the fox said. “I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat…”"

Which, surely the references to hair and wheat fields means nothing about a man named Ryland (cough land of rye cough) Grace. Surely the man with his rose buds on his ship and drowning in fox symbolism in his outfits should have nothing to do with a book about a little boy who searching across all the worlds for meaning and understanding and relationships, only to find that it is with the one that he has already left and that he will do anything for--even die to go back to. Surely this has no connection to Ryland Grace turning his ship around to go back to Rock even if he thought it would kill him. Surely.

There's a lot more here but its too early (late) and I'm so emotional I can't put all the connections together right this second. Like I'd need to sit down and re-read the whole book to put it all together because there's a LOT going on like there are a LOT of connections to be made here. Other people have made this connection between the two stories before, even! But now its getting pushed even further because there's ROSES of all friggin plants on this ship.

As a former music teacher, I can also say that "learn the fundamentals first" is the death knell for a vast percentage of beginners, especially adult learners.

I've run into this with drawing several times, where some well-meaning artist has lectured me on needing to study anatomy properly or not use shortcuts like CSP brushes. And oh, believe me, I know. I know exactly how to learn an artistic discipline in a structured way. I just...don't want to!

The thing is, I'm not aiming to be a professional artist. I want to draw my gay little anime guys. I would undoubtedly improve at art much faster if I approached every gay little anime guy drawing as a study exercise. But I would also have quit drawing a decade ago if I couldn't just let myself enjoy drawing imperfect fucked-up little guys with whatever shortcuts I needed to body myself across the finish line.

With my adult piano students, my approach was always "What's your goal?" If their goal was to learn exactly one Elton John songbook to play at parties, then...that's what we did. We'd put tape on the keys to label the notes, and just fuckin go for it. Learning exactly one Elton John songbook is a good and noble musical goal, full stop.

Some of my students needed and enjoyed a more structured approach to learning; if they wanted to be able to play classical music, then yes, scales were going to have to enter the equation at some point. And yet others would learn the Elton John songbook, catch their white whale, and realize they wanted to explore more of the ocean. The scales were still there for them to learn!

Often the choice isn't between "learn art well" and "learn art imperfectly" - the choice is between "learn art imperfectly" and "don't do art at all." To which I say, learn imperfectly! Or, what the hell, don't 'learn' art. Just do, and enjoy the doing of it.

I went, "What. no. she/her."

"How does that work? With she/her/hers and they/them?"

I stared at her. "What are you talking about?"

"Well you came out as-" and I said, "I'm asexual."

She replied, "Like an amoeba, I know."

"Oh. My god. No. Mom. It doesn't- it's not the asexual you learned about in biology. I didn't come out as a single celled organism."

With heavy relief, she said "Oh, it has a different meaning?"