A-Plus
Choices
“We
are traditionally rather proud of ourselves for having slipped creative work in
there between domestic chores and obligations. I’m not sure we deserve such big
A-pluses for that.”
Toni
Morrison
When I
was a young person, a child really, I wanted to dance. Craved dancing, with the
ballet shoes and tutus. I wanted to be a ballerina so bad I could taste it.
Later, I wanted to write books. I even wrote a whole (sappy) book at thirteen.
Later still, I wanted to paint, to be an artist. One of the first classes I took
Freshman year in college was an art course in sketch drawing. All of those
passions were discouraged, and even at times disparaged. We couldn’t afford the
lessons, the equipment, the clothes—so I abandoned those dreams. Instead, I became
a teacher, a counselor, and finally, in my late 40’s, a massage therapist. In
the middle of all that, I married and had two sons. I loved all those jobs,
adored being a mother (still do) and considered my life truly fulfilling. Still,
I squeezed in time for my art—around the edges of everything else. Literally,
around the edges—you should see my notebooks—drawings in all the margins of
class notes. Sometimes I even broke out into journals, wrote in circles, drew
sunsets and snails crawling and stacks of colorful boxes.
No one else took my art
seriously, so I didn’t either. A man-friend once told me while looking at one
of my paintings, “You must have too much time on your hands.” Another asked me,
as we were figuring my taxes, “How much time to you spend on this art? You are
making about 2-cents an hour.” But now I understand a little more—I know that art,
for me, is not what I do, it is who I am. I’m an artist. It’s too bad I couldn’t
say that without an apology until I was almost seventy.
I’m writing this about me in order to say to you: Don’t do what I did. Don’t look to others
to tell you what you “should” be doing or what is a waste of your time. What if
Toni Morrison had done that—we would be missing out on her brilliant books. Or,
what if someone had said to Johann Sebastian Bach, “Man, leave that piano alone
and go do something useful.” So, maybe we aren’t Toni Morrison or Bach. That
doesn’t mean that we don’t have the soul of an artist, or that art is not our
calling unless our paintings are hanging in the Louvre.
You define you. You
listen to the whisperings of your soul, your heart’s desire, and whatever it
tells you, go do it if you can. That will absolutely get you an A-plus in
lifetime contentment.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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