Who We Are...

"Who we are and what we do are sometimes two different things."

I don't remember  exactly when I  came up with this analogy, but it pretty much sums up my life in a nutshell. It may have been years ago when my young son once asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up.  It was maybe in that moment that I realized how little my life showed who I really was... and how my dreams of being an artist had fallen by the roadside. I remember being told that I was an artist when I was in kindergarten and I've held this belief ever since. You can't just let your five year old self's dreams die!!

So I decided that I needed to do something..anything to keep my hopes alive!

After seeing a copy of "The Polar Express " by Chris Van Allsburg at a local bookstore... I was instantly inspired!! These were not silly little cartoon elves and reindeer, these were realistic images, images from life in a children's story. I had never really paid much attention to children's picture books before, I mean I had seen them of course, but I never really looked into the depth of what they had to offer. What I found amazed me!!It was then that I looked into what I had been writing and found a story that seemed to be perfect!

"I Hear the Wind " became my obsession, my grand experiment, my introduction into the world of creating a children's picture book. I had been writing short stories and descriptive essays for a number of years, So the idea of putting my words and pictures together seemed like a natural!

I filled notebooks and sketch pads, I wrote and rewrote the text to fit the picture book format.
I was immersed in a creative frenzy... and I loved it! I was involved in the process of creating and doing something that was truly important to me.  Who I was and what I was doing were finally coming together.

So even though I was still working a full time  job that was totally unrelated to the arts, I felt like I was going in the right direction. Over the next several years, I was able to have three books published and did several mural projects and had a couple book signings. I even attended a couple library conferences as a regional writer and illustrator. It seemed like momentum was going my way. But I still wasn't able to support my family financially with my creative talents.

After several years of fairly good success, the momentum slowly died. I soon found myself without a studio when my daughter's took over the upstairs bedroom where my little studio space was, they apparently didn't want me up there...teenage girls and dad's don't mix well I guess. So with all my "stuff" crammed into boxes and scattered around the house, I basically just gave up.  I  seemed to no longer feel that what I was doing was all that important anymore.  The person who I was... suddenly didn't matter anymore.

So instead of getting all pathetic about everything, I suppose I should have just bucked it up and moved on, which in a way I sort of did.  I moved on, I kept busy doing other things.

So again the years passed.  Occasionally people would ask if I was still painting or writing books, and I would answer rather vaguely that I was busy doing other things. Again, who I was and what I did became two different things. But then the more I thought about it...the more I realized that maybe I was more than just a writer and an artist. I had other interests that I was passionate about as well. Gardening in the summer and then canning pickles and salsa. Fishing whenever I'm able to get out on the water. My passion for sausage making gets to the point of obsession at times! Potato sausage, smoked Polish kielbasa, German bratwurst, breakfast and Italian sausage.... every time pork shoulder roasts go on sale...I'm there!! I ventured into beer making and have thoughts of making my own mead (honey wine). Granted I've never really had what one could call "a career", but then it's quite rare when someone actually ends up "livin' the dream".

We are all different people with different talents and abilities. Who we are and what we do can be two different things, just as long as we strive to keep our dreams alive and work to make our lives better.  I hope this doesn't come off sounding like some sort of cheap motivational speaker monologue, though in a way it does... but just as long as the main message gets through. Who we are and what we do can and maybe should be two different things.

Take care...