I reached a moment the other day that was somewhat of an 'ah-ha' moment, one of those moments that blind sights you when you least expect it but makes things make more sense.

I was sitting on a train on my way to work, incredibly bored when a little old man sat opposite me. He was beautiful, I wouldn't normally say this about little old men but this one struck me as totally out of the ordinary, he had the most interesting face I'd seen in quite some time. The wrinkles stood as blatant testament to the hardships he'd been through and equally so the good times, the deep creases around his mouth and his eyes made this clear. He began dozing, resting his head on his arm as a child might, for a moment surrendering himself to that basic instinct children feel...and out came my sketch book.

I don't normally do it so obviously, but there are some people in life that have to be documented, he was one. As my pencil sketched out the basic details he would open his eyes from time to time, watch me for a brief instant with clear blue eyes that my black and white sketch will never be able to note, then fall back into his doze.

This continued for some time, then he rose to his feet, after 10 minutes of being the perfect model, and as the train pulled into it's stop he came and stood beside me, looked at what I'd been doing and just smiled. That smile spoke volumes, it made me feel good about my art and gave the impression we were somewhat of kindred spirits...and it showed that he had spent far more time smiling in his life than frowning, his face was even more beautiful when he did that.

It was a rather profound moment.