In the last ten years, through some odd travels down the information superhighway, I’ve managed to “meet” a lot of interesting, talented, potentially amazing people, at least I find most of them fascinating. Admittedly, I’ve never met most of them. One of the truly revolutionary features of the internet is the ability to make friends all over the world.
We have a friend who lives in Oceania, she is cursed with an unnatural gift of creativity and ability. Our friendship is still in its infancy, as far as friendships go, only five or six years, but during that time I’ve seen her bend her enormous gifts to all sorts of unusual, diverse things, stained glass, needlework, blogging, baking. She was a talent in search of a medium.
One day she was eating lunch in a park and came across a hand-painted rock. It was the closest thing I’ve ever seen to serendipity. She threw herself into the creations of these tiny masterpieces. And that’s what they are, perfect little paintings on “naturally occurring and coherent aggregate of one or more minerals.” When she is done the transformation is revolutionary. The whole is significantly more than the sum of its parts.
I didn’t realize this at the time but the whole purpose of painting these rocks is the art of creation mixed with the joy of sharing.
A rock becomes a treasure and the treasure is left in a carefully chosen location, so somebody can find it. It’s a gift to a stranger, who it is hoped will have a little smile, post the find on Facebook and leave it for someone else. The gift that keeps on giving.
We were planning a trip to a retired fire lookout on the top of a lonely mountain in the rugged, beautiful wilds of northwestern Montana. It was going to be a wild dash across ten states in three days (it almost killed us. I need to start taking a more active role in planning our vacations).
Our friend, the rock painter, wanted us to take some rocks and hide them along the way.
At no small expense, she sent us a box of rocks, halfway around the world.
Before we even left town one of the rocks, the one about plants growing up through concrete, had been claimed by my wife’s coworker. It was love at first sight. She adopts and loves rescue dogs and catches spiders in her house so she can release them outside. She has always rooted for the underdogs and loves the weeds. It brought a smile to her face.
We have a Facebook friend, a crazy, nomadic, restless, friend, who lived in Europe. She saw a Facebook post on my page showing my wife and I leaving a rock along the way. She wanted to paint rocks. In fact, her reply to my post was “I want to paint rocks.” She became friends with our artist friend.
Our friend from Oceania sent her a box of rocks to help her get started. The crazy, nomad friend left them all over the African continent on one of her pilgrimages to find the meaning of life. Then she started painting them. And in one of the weirdest twists on reality I could ever imagine these two distant, dear friends of ours ended up living in the same country and have actually met.
My cousin, who was with us when we hid one of the rocks, became friends with our artist friend and in a move that didn’t surprise us at all she sent him a box of rocks to hide.
We ran across a free spirit at a local festival, she had a bus that was all decked out in wild hieroglyphs from a distant America, when peace and freedom were the dream. A time of foolish optimism and tie-dye, rock and roll and idealism. We had one rock left and gave it to her. Soon, she was friends with the original rock painter and she was painting rocks, hiding them. The circle grew.
Since Facebook tries to find things I like one day a post popped up about a woman in Georgia who took her mom for a chemotherapy treatment. In the parking lot, they found a rock with a flower painted on it and it made her mom so happy it brought tears to the eyes of both women. It was one of the most moving things I’d read in a long time. I joined the group because I’ve become a true believer in the power of painted rocks.
On a Friday, before a short trip to a state park, my wife walked out of work and found a rock painted to look like a ladybug. I joined that group so I could post that we found it, and hid it. Hey, I do my part. If you find a painted rock, join the group on the back, post it on their page, post it on your page, shout it from the mountain top, let everybody know. Somebody took the time to paint it and hide it, an act of selfless, kind generosity, and they would love to know the story.
Our friend from Oceania joined both Facebook groups. She has become an international sensation.
All of this happened over the course of three or four years. A network of friends, and co-conspirators, all based around our original renaissance friend from so far away. A magic, kind, beautiful person who just wants to spread a few smiles. I have this strange feeling our friend, our talented, relentless, gifted friend is going to take over the world one painted rock at a time, personalized for emphasis. And the world will be a better, more beautiful place. We’re ok with that.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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