For the past five weeks, I’ve worked with that question while learning how to bend wire, shape foam, and saw wood. Today, we turned in our projects and had our final critiques. I thought it was a good time to share the outcome of that process.

After playing around with a number of ideas in my sketchbook, I decided I wanted to create something that would reflect where I see the bend in my life. Having just hit the 50-year-old mark, I can reflect on the forces that have molded my life into the shape it is now, as well as look forward to what I want to do with the next fifty years of my life. If I were fortunate enough to live for 100 years, what would I have to show for the time? In the back of my mind, I remembered a music video of a song by the group Five for Fighting. It had the word “fifteen” in the lyrics and I remembered that it followed the stages of a boy’s life, from the time he’s fifteen, then through the decades of his life. It wasn’t the progression through the years that made me think of it, however, but the image of an enormous oak tree with a spreading canopy I remembered from the video. I vaguely recalled the boy climbing the tree and knew I had the image I wanted. Not the boy. The tree. I looked up the video to make sure I wasn’t misremembering, and there it was: an old oak tree, beautiful in all its gnarled, twisted strength. It was only then that I noticed the name of the song: “100 Years.” Apparently there are no new ideas, just new people who think they’ve thought of them for the first time.

I liked the idea of the tree representing both my past and my future, with roots grounding me to my experiences and branches reaching toward opportunity, but I wanted to illustrate what my life has been grounded in. That idea came quickly as well: books. Although the whole “Book of Knowledge” idea could become cliche, in my case it seemed absolutely accurate. I honestly don’t know what my life would have looked like without the inspiration from books.

Knowing what I wanted to do, and knowing how to do it were two entirely different things, however.

I started with the “book” element. After talking with my teacher, I decided to create it out of plaster and he gave me a quick plastering tutorial. First I carved the shape into a block of purple insulation foam board, which was . . . what is the technical term? . . . fun. The only thing that was more fun was to cover the shape with plaster. Remember when we were in grade school and covered an inflated balloon with strips of newspaper slathered in glue? It was a lot like that, only I loaded my plaster on strips of used dryer sheets. I can’t tell you how excited I was finally to discover a use for those things.

Once it all dried into a somewhat lumpy mess, I  sanded and filed the thick plaster into a more refined “book” shape, I decided to cover the plaster surface with excerpts from books that have been important to me. I didn’t want to rip into my actual books, of course, so I scanned pages from about two dozen books, including work by Wallace Stegner and William Stafford, Madeleine L’Engle and Nathanial Hawthorne. I copied out a soliloquy from Hamlet and a quote by Martha Graham. I had the dictionary pages that listed the definitions of the words “story,” “psychology,” and “art.” I scanned the chart from a book on optimal experience called Finding Flow, which came from a chapter called “The Content of Experience.” When I read that phrase, I knew I had the title for my piece of art. This, then, would represent the content of my own experience, and what had gone in to making me, well, me.

Next, to create the tree. I started with 100 lengths of aluminum wire, one for each year of my potential life. They were mercifully soft and bendy and I could twist them with my fingers. Because aluminum is so soft and bendy, however, I used a length of brass rod as structural support for the wire, which I shaped into a more graceful, natural tree-like form with the aid of two enormous, wrench-like tools that were almost too heavy for me to lift. I felt mighty and competent bending the stubborn rod to my will. After achieving the shape I wanted, I twisted the 100 pieces of wire around the rod, creating a web of roots, a strong trunk, and reaching, supple branches.

Next came the task of putting the two elements together, connecting the roots of the tree to the book, actually piercing the surface of the pages so the roots could dig in. I spent an entire afternoon playing with the branches, creating the canopy of the tree.

Finally, I mounted the whole thing on a board I painted black, providing the “table” the on which the book could rest. Finally, it was done. I figured I had spent a total of about 30 hours on the project. Here’s the finished piece that I took to class today for my critique.

So what did I learn from the project?

• That working in three-dimensions is a revealing experience. All sides of the art piece are important and say different things. It gave me a much different perspective on . . . perspective.
• That sticking your hands into thick, creamy plaster is a delicious experience.
• That you are as powerful as the tools you know how to use.
• That you should never wear black pants on the day you are carving purple insulation foam.

Most importantly, however, I practiced working a little bit ahead of myself, throwing an idea out in front of me, and trusting that the information, tools and materials I needed would somehow show up for the job. It took one hissy-fit, a fair amount of trust and patience, and about 30 hours of messing around to figure out my first sculpture. I’m happy for now.

At least until next week, when we start our next project. I’m not making any promises.

I’ve always liked and admired still life paintings. In college, while on an overseas study abroad program in England and The Nederlands, I visited world-class museums for the first time–the National Gallery and the Tate in London, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. I was overwhelmed and in awe as I wandered in front of art by all the masters, but I developed a special place in my heart for still life paintings. I still have, hanging on my living room wall, the framed print of a Dutch still life I carted home in my suitcase thirty years ago. The artist was not well-known, and I’m embarrassed to say I don’t know his name. I do, however, see his still life almost every day of my life. I included a photograph of it at the start of this post, so now you’ve seen it too.

Traditionally, a still life, as you probably know, was an artistic depiction of commonplace items, either natural—such as flowers, fruit, shells, food, stones—or crafted—such as books, musical instruments, jewelry, vases, pipes or dishes.  Many of the items carried symbolic meaning and and the paintings themselves often served as a source of enrichment or focus of meditation. One particular subset of still lifes, called vanitas, included items that focused the viewer on the transitoriness of life. Images of human skulls, overripe fruit, wilting flowers, insects, hourglasses, and candles (sometimes with their flames extinguished) would serve as a meditation on the fact that, well, life is short.

There are many wonderful examples of still life paintings.. Here are a few:

One by Paul Cezanne. He called it Black Marble Clock, but I also see a coffee cup and the remains of a meal.

This one an example of a vanitas still life by Pieter Claesz. Notice the skull and timepiece.

Another one by Picasso. I see a violin, a journal and some fruit.

When I set out to create a still life for my own painting, I went to my journal to think about what I wanted to create. In doing so, I had my answer.

Most mornings, I crawl out of bed in the dark. I stumble downstairs and nearly blind myself with the kitchen light so I can see to start the coffee maker. While it brews, I feed our dog, Abby, and take her for a brief walk down the street. She is almost as bleary-eyed as I am. By the time I return, my coffee is ready and I head for my favorite chair in the living room, a comfy wingback by the fireplace with an ottoman and everything. I light the fireplace, light a candle, and drop into my chair. I sip my coffee and pull out my black Moleskine journal and my favorite Waterman fountain pen. For the next half hour to 40 minutes, I write or sketch in my journal. Sometimes I’ll meditate, and sometimes, I’ll just sit quietly and listen to the whirr of the furnace, notice the smell of my coffee, or watch as the world outside my window lights up with pink sun. I am still. This is my still life.

It seems like such a little thing, really, a short time spent quieting my mind and my pace long enough to listen for the voice that tells me where I should go, what I should do. But this still life of mine is crucial for my sanity, my sense of contentment, and my confidence. Plus, I think my family notices that I’m less crabby after I’ve taken this time to breathe.

It was, therefore, a no-brainer to decide to paint a still life of my still life. I pulled together the necessary elements: coffee in a cup, a candle, my journal and fountain pen. I grabbed a couple of other objects that are also meaningful to me (see my blog post “The Symbols We Live”). I also included the picture of myself as my instructor requested. I draped a couple of table cloths over a box on my kitchen table and set up my little tableau. Doug was gracious enough to use his photographic skills to take a picture of my collection. Here is the result.

I love how this turned out and am excited to paint it. One of the most enjoyable parts of the whole project, however, was assembling the objects. A still life provides so much room for symbolism and metaphor, which makes it a perfect exercise for art journaling. Creating a personal still life and taking a photograph of it, even with a simple camera like the one in most cell phones, is an illuminating art journaling exercise. It’s creative, playful, and usually requires items that you already have around your house.

Try it for yourself. Make a still life of any aspect of your life. Maybe it’s how you like to cook, or your passion for golf or  water polo, or your role as a parent. Or, like me, you can do something to represent your own “still life.” Take a picture and print it out if you can. Paste it in your journal. You can spend a few minutes writing about the objects that appear in your arrangement. How do these objects speak to you? What are they saying?

Listen.

And I did. I wasn’t that familiar with Teasdale’s work. I knew she was a poet because I’ve come across her name frequently in crossword puzzles. But knowing the spelling of her name is about as close as I’d come to reading anything by her.

The poem was “Barter.” The first line is a stunner:  “Life has loveliness to sell.”

It’s an intriguing idea. We all want lovely, meaningful moments in our lives, but what cost would we pay to get them? Teasdale offers an answer: anything and everything. The last stanza of Teasdale’s poem reads:

Spend all you have for loveliness,

Buy it and never count the cost;

For one white singing hour of peace

Count many a year of strife well lost,

And for a breath of ecstasy

Give all you have been, or could be.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the cost of following one’s passion. It’s been a while since I’ve been stretched this thin. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve had a lot on my plate. In addition to spending time in art classes and on art homework, I made a commitment to speak to a group of people about writing life stories, which took a fair amount of time to prepare for. Plus, my application for the art therapy program at Marylhurst was due last Tuesday. It had about 10 different parts to it, including three pieces of writing. And, of course, I wanted to keep up with my weekly blog posts.

In addition, Sarah had swim meets each week for which Doug and I were timers. Then the sump pump in our basement broke when we were having record rains in Oregon. Last week, Sarah hurt her back diving and needed to see the doctor. Then our college student daughter Kate called and said she’d like to come home for the weekend (hurray!)—and that she’d like to bring five friends with her. “Absolutely,” I said, and tracked down air mattresses and towels and stocked up on pizza and chips. Not to be left out, Sarah said she’d like to have two of her friends join the slumber party. Doug and I looked at each other. Two more people wouldn’t make a difference. They were all great kids—all nine of them. I didn’t want to say no, regardless of how busy I was.

And that’s the point. All these demands that threatened to overload my life were things I had invited on purpose because I loved them. Well, that’s not strictly true; I could live without the sump pump repair. But all the rest—art classes, art homework, writing, teaching, parenting—are types of loveliness I would happily spend all of my emotional and physical capital to obtain.

There is a cost, of course. I had to let some things go. Actually, I had to let a lot of things go.  Here’s a partial list:

• Cooking (Not necessarily a bad thing, in my case). We’ve eaten a lot of Costco casseroles.
• Cleaning my house (Poor Doug. He’s been vacuuming like a wild thing.)
• Reading for pleasure. I can’t tell you the last time I got lost in a good mystery or read a magazine. This is quite a departure for me.
• Sleep
• Getting my hair cut. I finally raided Sarah’s stash of elastics and bobby pins just to keep my hair out of my face while I’m painting.
• Shopping for anything—groceries, dish soap, cute shoes.

So, I ask myself, is it worth it? What am I hoping to gain from  my crammed schedule, the barely-keeping-up-with-everything pace, and my shaggy hair? My answer? I’m getting the loveliness life has to sell. There was a moment last weekend when I was sitting in our living room working on a drawing assignment. I was deeply absorbed in my work, but occasionally I’d catch a conversation between Kate and her friends discussing their classes, their friendships, or their futures.  I heard the laughter of Sarah and her friends from the other room. Doug was in the kitchen, mixing another batch of dough to turn into cinnamon rolls or a loaf of ciabatta bread, which I would later eat with too much butter.

These are the moments worth having, for which I will barter quite a lot. The ironing and dusting can wait. We can eat Costco casseroles. I’ll catch up on sleep when I can. I’ve paid for these moments, and I plan to enjoy them.

1.

My sculpture class meets for six hours each Friday. It’s the third of  three art classes I’m taking this term, and the one in which I have the least experience. And by least experience I mean absolutely none. Nothing. Other than the Play-Doh I messed around with as a kid, I have never sculpted anything. I signed up for Sculpture-Mixed Media with the expectation that I would learn techniques to work with different materials—clay, wire, wood, paper.  I figured I would be given  specific assignments, as I was in both my drawing and painting classes, that could help me gain skill and feel some measure of success with each type of media.

The teacher for my sculpture class apparently had a completely different idea. Instead of opening the first class by taking attendance and figuring out who was  going to spend the term with him, he instead asked if anybody had seen any good art lately. Or even bad art. He didn’t get around to the class list until well into the third hour of the class. I scanned through the syllabus, frantic to figure out what I would be learning and how it would be taught, only to realize with ever growing panic that there would be two assignments all term, giving us roughly half of the term to work on each one. Aside from a brief research project on the work of a living sculptor, there were no other requirements. No supplies list. No schedule of techniques taught. No guidelines. We were instructed to show up the following week with sketches for our first sculpture and the supplies we wanted to use.

I was not only panicked, I was angry. How was I supposed to learn anything if the teacher didn’t seem to want to teach me. At the end of the six-hour class, during which I had learned nothing more than what tools were available in the wood shop, I approached him, asking if he could give me any further guidance. I explained that I was a rank beginner, and until I learned what types of materials were commonly used and how to use them, it was hard to know how to create anything. His response?

“What do you want to say with your art?”

Really? That’s all he had for me? How do I know what to say if I don’t know how to say it! I was seriously peeved and huffed my way home where I proceeded to vent for about an hour to Doug and Sarah and just about anyone else who would listen. After I calmed down, I decided that I would just have to figure it out for myself. As upset as I was, I was convinced that my teacher was a caring person who wanted to help me if I could formulate a question, but that it would be up to me to decide what I needed to know. I made a trip to the art supply store, wandered through the sculpture aisle and bought some wire and some clay.

But I also thought about his other question. What did I want to say? Since I plan to work with art in a therapeutic context, I wanted my sculpture to say something about my decision to go back to school, to combine art therapy with writing and teaching. I wanted to say something about what I’ve learned in my fifty years about where your life leads you, even if you are surprised along the way.

2.

This morning, I woke up early and checked my computer. My daughter Sarah had posted something to my Facebook page the night before. It was a quote from Douglas Adams, the author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,  an influential voice especially for my children’s generation. This quote was from his book The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul:

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.

How could she know that that was the message I needed today. Well, to be fair, it wouldn’t hurt me to be reminded of it most days. Where did I intend to go? When I was in grade school, I wanted to be an author/illustrator. I was an avid reader and a bit of a loner and found comfort in books. I  was captured by the notion that I could feel so connected, so understood by an author of a story, even one I’d never met. That’s what I wanted, to write something that would touch another person in that way. Over the years, I refined what I wanted in a career and in  life: that connection through meaningful work and meaningful relationships.

For the most part, I’ve been successful in achieving both. I’ve been able to work as a writer, a teacher and a counselor, all of which is meaningful to me. I have many relationships that enrich my life—my husband and kids, parents and sisters and in-laws and friends, the baristas at our coffee shop, my ex-husband’s family, my husband’s ex-wife. However, the path to achieving those things has been anything but smooth.  And I must say, I expected them to be smooth. I’d always imagined  I would marry and have children. I planned to have an interesting, challenging career that paid well and allowed me to wear nice clothes to work. I’ve had lots of intentions and five-year plans and ten-year plans, and for the most part, they worked. They got me moving and pointed me in the direction that I wanted to go. Without intentionality, I run the risk of wandering around in the dark, depending on chance to light my way. I’m a big fan of planning where I want to go.

The problem with my five- and ten-year plans, however, was that they didn’t allow for the times when my life didn’t turn out the way I’d planned. I hadn’t counted on being a divorced, single mother. When I remarried a wonderful man with two kids of his own, and later had another child, I hadn’t realized that the most interesting, challenging job I could ever encounter was being the parent in a blended family of four kids with three different parental structures. Two of our children spent the school year living out-of-state with their mom. I hadn’t foreseen that the only time we had together as a  family would be in hotel rooms in another state, or during summer vacations in our home. We needed one parent to be flexible and free enough to manage our non-traditional family structure.  I was working as a college counselor, a job that paid reasonably well and allowed me to wear nice clothes to work. Still, we reasoned that since Doug worked for his own business, which was harder to quit than my job at the college, I would trade in my briefcase for a diaper bag. Beyond the rationale, I knew in my heart that I should be the one to manage the home front.

And so I stepped away from the career I’d imagined—17 years ago. In the meantime I’ve cobbled together different work experiences, none of them as structured or as well-paid as the one I left. I worked part-time for Doug’s company,  volunteered at the kids’ schools, and started my own company helping people write their own stories. None of it looked the way I imagined it when I was a shy ten-year-old hiding out in the school library, imaging a connection with a distant, unknown reader. I couldn’t have predicted any of it. It’s an odd mess of experiences and lessons I’ve accumulated, filled with plane flights and parent-teacher conferences, conversations with old soldiers and young moms. I never could have planned it, but it is, after all, absolutely what I needed to do.

3.

My painting and drawing classes are full of intention. In each, I have a syllabus which lists the weekly assignments and a teacher who guides me through it week by week. I have supplies I am taught how to use and I see examples of how my work ought to look when I’m finished. I like this way of working and I’m comfortable with it.

My sculpture class is another way of working. I am learning to throw off the guidelines, toss out my expectations, and get down to the most basic question: What do I want say with my most basic form of art—my life? What materials,  experiences and techniques will  help me to say it?

I’m making a tree out of wire, one strand for each of the 100 years I hope to live. Its roots are planted in a worn, well-read book , it’s branches stretched from a twisted trunk, reaching upward, outward. I’m not exactly sure how I’ll do it.

4.

I want to go back and talk to the little girl I was and tell her that I am, after all, writing, reaching out to connect to distant, unknown readers. Every Friday.

One of the best sections of the whole book is a passage at the beginning of Chapter 30, in which “the man with six days to live” talks with a young boy, Daniel.  They are sitting on the porch at night and he tells Daniel,

These things matter to me, son. The way hawks huddle their shoulders angrily against hissing snow. Wrens whirring in the bare bones of bushes in winter. The way swallows and swifts veer and whirl and swim and slice and carve and curve and swerve. The way that frozen dew outlines every blade of grass. Salmonberries thimbleberries cloudberries snowberries elderberries salalberries gooseberries. My children learning to read. My wife’s voice velvet in my ear at night in the dark under the covers.

The passage goes on for over a page, just one long paragraph. It is delicious to read and to savor, bringing with it tactile, spicy memories of things we all know and love, but often overlook: folding laundry warm from the dryer, fresh mown lawns, or the sound of ice shaken in drinks. I could happily copy out the whole section for you but I wouldn’t want to deprive you of the joy of searching it out and reading it for yourself. Heck, read the whole book.

What I will do is encourage you to spend a few quiet moments and start your own list. What are the things that matter to you? Of course, when pressed, we will all quite accurately mention that our families are important, as are our friends, good health and peaceful nations. No arguments here. But what specific things make a difference to you. What small moments jolt you to joy. These are treasures. These are worth recording.

I decided to write a list for myself, a la Doyle. I’m sure, given time,  I will be able to refine it, or add to it. There are so many things that matter. However, here’s my first attempt, brushed down in about an hour.

 These things matter to me.

The way a single maple leaf transfers its russet imprint on wet concrete. The thick ink of my fountain pen rolled over the page of my Moleskine journal. The flutter of a chickadee darting at the feeder, it’s black cap and puffed out white chest. Being stunned by a poem. Wood smoke. A great blue heron stilted on a dock, so still I don’t see it until I row past. Creamy thick oil paint brushed on white canvas. My mother’s potato soup on the day of the first snow of my childhood winters. Starfish. The curve of a warm coffee cup in my hand. Kissing the salty foreheads of my children  when they were small. Kissing their foreheads now. The poetic names of flowers–plumeria, delphinium, gardenia, clematis, wisteria. Leaning over to tuck my daughter Kate into bed when she was a toddler, and the way she would gently roll strands of hair at the nape of my neck between her small fingers. The way it would keep me an extra twenty minutes, the stalling successful. Hedgehogs. The way the fingers of my husband Doug interlace mine. Floating on my back, held up by a warm ocean. Pearls. Quail running from brush to wood pile, their crests bobbing.  My sisters’ faces, mirroring my own. Sea turtle ballet in green water. The pleasure of towels folded properly. My son Sam, age 8, hugging me like he won’t ever let go. Sam, taller than I am now, hugging me the same way still. Rain on a tin roof. The laughter of women. The barn smell of horses and leather. The smell of chlorine on Doug’s skin when he hugs me after swimming. Candles. The pop and crack of a wood fire on a cold day. Pugs. Driving my daughter Katherine to ballet in high school, a half hour each way in traffic, listening to pop songs, listening to her think out loud. The quiet of snow. The way September sunlight angles and burnishes autumn trees.  Sliding into clean sheets. The way my daughter Sarah used to say “callapitter” for caterpillar, and “nay-naise” for mayonnaise, which was so adorable I never corrected her. The way Kate taught her to say it properly. The soulfulness of dogs’ eyes. The bittersweet taste of dark chocolate on my tongue. The birthstones of my children–sapphire, amethyst, ruby, sapphire–set in platinum, circling my finger. The curve of Doug’s shoulders. The silver starfish hung on a chain around my neck. The sound of the word grace when I say it softly, whispered as a prayer, floating past my teeth. Grace.

What are the things that matter to you?

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. -Walt Disney

My daughter Kate posted this quote on her Facebook page  yesterday and I loved it. No matter whether you are a 20-year-old journalism major like Kate or a 50-year-old writer and mom like me, we can all still be pushed into new adventures, tempted by new doors just by being curious.

The timing of Kate’s post was especially good for me. Curiosity, along with a maddening compulsion to feel forward motion in my life, has led me to step out on a new path this week. And what a week it has been…..

A few months ago, I decided to return to counseling, work I did early in my career but which I hadn’t practiced in a formal way for about 17 years. Still, I didn’t want to do the exact same thing, and felt compelled to try another approach. Open a different door, if you will. This time around,  I wanted to be able to incorporate my love of art. Although I have a degree in counseling, I looked for programs that would lead to certification as an art therapist. It turns out that one of the few accredited art therapy programs in the country just happened to be in my own backyard. It also offered a certificate program for people who already have masters degrees in counseling. How cool is that?

So cool. It felt like a perfect opportunity, one that resonated deep inside. I decided to apply for the program starting next Fall term.  There were a few hurdles, of course. I learned that I  must first complete 21 credits of studio art classes in drawing, painting and sculpture in the next nine months. On the other hand, being forced to take lots of art classes seemed like a very good problem indeed. I signed up for three classes this term at a local community college. I got my parking pass and my Portland Community College I.D. card, and started classes this week.

All in all, it’s been amazing. So many weird and familiar emotions came rushing into focus. First-day-of-class nerves, the excitement of having a supply list to fill, the strangeness of having a set schedule to follow after years of a free-lancer’s flexibility. The only part that really surprised me, however, that came close to driving me crazy was the chatter! And I’m not talking about the hordes of students the ages of my children. I’m talking about the chatter in my own brain.

Coincidentally (or maybe not so coincidentally) my yoga teacher this week talked about how we often feel tempted not to stretch ourselves or expand our abilities, how we can feel tempted to play it safe. She called it “talking yourself out of your own success.”

Hoo boy! Does that ever sound familiar, especially this week. For example, I walked out of my first painting class with a homework assignment. The first step of my first project was to take a close-up photo of my face and hands in black and white which I would later paint on a larger panel.

The chatter started when I tried taking a photograph. I heard a steady stream of questions from my inner critic. Let’s call her Madge.

“You don’t want to use that photo! All of your wrinkles show.”

“Wow, did you realize that your nose was that big?”

“You’re going to have to draw that. Don’t you think that’s a little complicated?”

See what I mean? Chatter.

I finally just picked a photo and took it to my next class. After many years of hearing this voice in my head, I recognize Madge for who she is:  the critical, fretting perfectionist who has dogged me since grade school. I imagine her as somewhat frumpy and fashion-challenged, wearing glasses and a cardigan and sensible shoes. She’s sort of a cranky librarian sort. For years I fought against her, thinking that she saw it as her job to keep me from accomplishing my goals, and it was my job to thwart her. Over time, though, I’ve come to see that she really does mean well. In her own maddening way, she is trying to keep me safe, to protect me from pain or disappointment. She’s not trying to “talk me out of my success” because she doesn’t want me to succeed. She would just rather that I didn’t risk getting hurt in the process. And there are times when her voice is actually useful to me. She’s probably the one that reminds me I should get to bed instead of playing another game of Angry Birds, or encourages me to schedule the root canal I’ve been putting off.

Once I figured out that this voice was a legitimate part of me and not an enemy, I was able to treat her words with much more compassion. But that doesn’t mean that I automatically needed to listen to her. I could decide if her words were helpful advice, or just an attempt to talk me out of taking a risk. If I decided if it was the latter, the trick was to politely but firmly thank her for her concern and then tune her out. I don’t have to believe everything I think.

I had many opportunities to chat with that voice this week. I marched back into my painting class, armed with a black and white photo of myself, wrinkles and all, and a 24″x”24″ panel. The teacher, recognizing that many of us might be nervous about drawing our images freehand on the panel, gave us a helpful tip: Subdivide the photograph with pie-shaped wedges and do the same with the panel. Then transfer the lines and shapes from only one pie wedge at a time.

The intent behind this technique is to force one’s attention away from the verbal monologue about the process, instead focusing on the pure sensory information. Is that line straight or curved? Is that a circle or an oval shape? How long is that line compared to the one next to it?

Before I could get to any of these questions, however, Madge started in:

“Aren’t eyes supposed to be almond-shaped?”

“That doesn’t look anything like a fingernail. Are you sure you’re doing this right?”

I was ready for her. I divided my triangles into smaller triangles so I was working on even smaller portions. I folded my reference photo until I could only see one section at a time. Still Madge persisted.

“Wow, you have a lot of wrinkles around your mouth. When did that happen?”

It called for more severe measures. I turned both my reference photo and my panel upside down so it would be much harder to identify what all the different “parts” were. Finally, she settled down. Finally, she was quiet. Finally, I was able to get into the rhythm of  drawing and get lost in the beauty of a dark line against a light background, to enjoy the relationship between two curves. The rest of the class was almost a meditation.

That doesn’t mean that I won’t have to work to keep Madge from trying to talk me out of my adventure. I’m sure she’d be happier if I played it a little safer, didn’t risk failure or disappointment or embarrassment. She will probably remind me that I’m decades older than other students. She might suggest that it would be nicer to spend an afternoon reading a good book or going out to coffee with a friend instead of sitting in a classroom. And sometimes she makes a lot of sense. After all, she’s known me my whole life, and wants me to be happy.

But there’s another voice I want to listen to. It’s the one that’s curious about new opportunities, and wonders what’s behind that door….

My husband, Doug, thinks I’m a crossword puzzle expert. He credits my ability to a well-known love of words and an entrenched habit of reading. He assumes that a person who works a puzzle quickly is someone who knows the answers to the clues before they begin. The execution of the puzzle is basically writing down what you already know.

As tempting as it is to let him believe that I am just unusually smart, I felt compelled to tell him the truth, which is something that those of you who regularly work the puzzles already know: crossword puzzle solutions are a result of a very specific set of skills which can be learned and practiced. While it helps to be fairly literate and to have a broad scope of interests, you will seldom know the answer to all of the clues. At least I don’t. I’m rocky on my geography and bad at Latin terms. I rarely know the names of famous sports figures or heroes of Norse mythology. The point is, it’s doesn’t really matter. You approach a puzzle without having all the clues, because there are other ways of knowing. And that’s what I love about crossword puzzles, and what keeps me coming back to them day after day. I get regular evidence that I know more than I thought I could know.

Doug asked me recently if I could teach him. For the past couple of months, we’ve sat down with the daily puzzle together. Slowly I’ve shared with him all the “tricks” I know. There are many other techniques, I’m sure, but here are a few for starters:

1. Some words are frequently used. They’re words like jai alai, oboe, sro (short for “standing room only” in a theater), or err. If you work puzzles long enough, you will start to recognize these regulars as old friends.
2. Just because you don’t know the answer to a clue, doesn’t mean you have to. You can also learn the answer by working all the crossed words. That’s why they call is a crossword puzzle! Don’t know the name of the largest lake in Australia? Filling in the perpendicular clues may tell you that it’s Lake “Eyre.” In this way, I’ve learned many wonderful, esoteric facts, like an etui is an ornamental needle case, or that the Hawaiian state bird is called a nene.
3. Understand that sometimes, the clue and the answer will be–how can I put this nicely–just really lame. I once struggled with the clue “a bit of foamy soap” only to learn that the answer was “sud.” Seriously. Never in my life have I encountered a singular sud. But there it is. Crossword puzzle writers have down days, too.
4. There is usually a theme to the puzzle–often a quotation, or a common structure, or a witty play on words. Figure out those, and you’ll make a lot of progress.

All of these are just tricks, however. The most important thing I’ve learned is not to spend too much time on any one clue. Trust that if you look away and work on something else your brain is still trying to come up with the answer.  Trust your marvelous mind to work on the problem without you consciously directing it. Let it show you what it knows.

This last lesson is the most exciting to me, because it has huge implications, not just for crossword puzzles but for other creative ventures in general. When approaching a creative problem, I’ve learned that there are two basic steps. They are:

One:  Show up for the work.

If I don’t pull out the crossword puzzle every day, I won’t learn anything and I won’t get any better. So do a crossword puzzle every day. Write a blog post every Friday. Paint one picture a week.

Two: Wait and watch for the answers.

You don’t have to have all the answers before you approach a creative project. In fact, it’s probably better not to have all the answers. Whether I’m writing a short story about my childhood, sketching a landscape, or figuring out how to arrange furniture in my living room. I will get further if I can find a way to be quiet and listen, and will often observe that my brain knows more than I can rationally explain.

This point was brought home to me this week. I was flipping through an old art journal from 2007, and on a page sandwiched  between a smudgy pastel design  and a watercolor sketch of a pineapple, I found that I had copied out a passage from a book, taken from a novel by Peter Pouncy, Rules for Old Men Waiting. I remembered the book fondly. It is a lovely story about an aging historian who, struggling with his wife’s recent death, decides to create a set of rules by which to live out the rest of his days, the most important of which is to “tell a story to its end.”

The passage which struck me, both in 2007 and this week, was his description of  how to tell his story. It’s all about listening, and it gives as good an explanation as I’ve ever seen for how to solve a problem, finish a crossword puzzle, or record the story of a life. Although written in prose, it is so lyrical, so dense, I’ve copied it out here as a poem.

I said to my soul, be still,

and watch the small trickling beginnings ease towards flood.

Let the story declare itself,

and the characters and events take me down among them

and draw the words out of me.

I have tried to possess myself in patience,

I have gathered all the hungers of my past in readiness,

to spell out the missing syllables of my life.

In the morning watch I shall wait,

and the quick, brown, wordy fox will come out of his hole,

sniff the air, and begin his narration.

It is only natural.

Sooner or later, if I watch, it is bound to happen.

Then I shall fill my book with profitable wonders.

I don’t know about you, but I find great comfort in these words. They remind me that I don’t have to be the smartest person, know the most facts, or master Latin conjugations. I just have to be still, to be patient and watch for the wonders that will reveal themselves to me.

Finally we relented one July, taking the ferry to the islands and scheduling a whale-watching trip that left the dock in Friday Harbor. Armed with binoculars, we took off with a naturalist on board. Kate was beside herself with excitement.

“But Kate,” I warned, “you realize that Double-Stuff is a wild whale. He could be anywhere. We might see some whales, but the chances of you getting to see your whale on this trip are pretty small.”

She just nodded sagely, forgiving me for my lack of faith.

The boat had been motoring for all of about 20 minutes when the captain got a radio report that a whale pod had been sighted, and he changed the boat’s bearings. Ten minutes later we could see the distinctive dorsal fins of orcas breaking the surface. The naturalist peered through her binoculars, checking her reference books.

“It’s J-Pod,” she said. “There’s Oreo, the female. Oh, and right behind her is her baby, Double-Stuff.”

From then on I never doubted. I was sure that Kate had called the whale to her. She is a bit of a whale-whisperer, for sure. But she’s not limited to whales. She uses her significant gifts with dogs, cats, lizards, horses, birds, snakes, and wolves. She volunteered at our zoo, hung out at dog parks, and made friends with every animal in our neighborhood. I have no doubt that her future career will include animals in some way.

When she decided to spend her winter break on a service trip to Peru, I wasn’t surprised. The purpose of the trip was to spend two weeks in the very rural village of Pisac, helping families–descendants of the original Incas–build ecological toilets. (They kept a blog as a group, which you can read at Peru Alternative Winter Break.) I was proud of her, of course, and excited that she had this kind of opportunity. The only thing that somewhat surprised me was that the trip wasn’t focused on animals.

That didn’t mean that Kate wouldn’t find animals anyway. She quickly discovered that dogs have a very difficult time in Peru, at least in the area where she was. Most people barely had enough food to feed themselves; there was no surplus to feed dogs as well. Strays roamed streets, sometimes in loosely formed packs, belonging to everyone and no one. None were neutered or spayed. Most weren’t fed regularly. It broke Kate’s heart. She saved part of her lunch everyday and fed it to hungry dogs. She spent her free time bonding with puppies, petting Peruvian perros.

This, of course, did not surprise me. Although she did manage to bring home some beautiful pictures of the day trip they took to Machu Picchu, she came home with far more photographs of dogs and pigs and llamas and cows and alpacas. Never for me was there a better example of Kate’s passion; she sees her world from the perspective of animals. I am in awe of her ability to connect. I was also glad she hadn’t brought home an actual dog.

My love for animals has come more slowly that it did for Kate. As much as I appreciate the grace and simple affection of animals, I’ve never felt particularly tempted to have them stay with me in my house. However, you can’t live with an animal-lover like Kate (or her siblings) and not be affected. With four kids, Doug and I faced some pretty heavy lobbying for a dog. I didn’t think I was ready for that kind of commitment. After all, I already had four children. I was fully encumbered. We went through cats, rabbits, fish, hamsters and guinea pigs in my continuing effort not to get a dog. After a while, I gave up and started searching web sites for the smallest, most hamster-sized dog I could find. I started out with Yorkshire terriers, the kind that could fit in my cupped hands.

So what did we end up with? A Newfoundland puppy we named Abby who grew into a 125-pound dog that mostly sleeps underfoot in my kitchen. She sheds piles of long black fur. I can crack an egg and find an Abby hair inside. She is spectacularly lazy and has to be lifted in and out of the back of our car. Having Abby has created just as much work and commitment as I expected.

But just as Kate called her whale to her through patient trust, Abby has called to me. If Kate is a whale-whisperer, Abby is a people-whisperer. At first, she won me over with her absolute devotion to my children. She seemed able to read their emotions and offer silent, steady support. When Katherine, our oldest, czme home feeling down from a bad day, Abby would meet her at the front door and sit on her feet, forcing Katherine to pet her long enough to feel better. Once our son Sam lagged behind the rest of the family while walking on the beach and Abby trailed him, gradually herding him until he caught up with the rest of us. Kate and Abby had an immediate connection, of course. And Sarah, our youngest who was five-years-old when Abby arrived, has literally grown up with her. I regularly walk into the kitchen and find Sarah sprawled out on the floor, her head on Abby’s side. This, all this, warms a mother’s heart.

But she called to me for my own sake. Abby just turned 11-years-old this month, which makes her ancient in dog years, older even than I am. I take her for short walks, and we commiserate over aging joints and painful hips. She’s taught me about patience and affection. And she’s convinced me that a big, shedding pile of fur in my kitchen is so much more valuable than clean floors and hair-free eggs.

We’ve already been extremely lucky. Newfoundlands live on average six to twelve years, and Abby just passed her eleventh birthday. I try not to think that we’re on borrowed time. We are a bit more indulgent at this point, giving her an extra dog biscuit now and then, an extra little walk. It’s hard to imagine, now, not having had her in my life.

Unlike Kate, I was a harder sell, a tougher case, but Abby won me over. I won’t ever be as passionate about animals as Kate is. That is her gift. But when Kate got home from Peru, while I loved seeing images of the ancient ruins of Machu Picchu, I spent just as much time gushing over pictures of Peruvian puppies.

When I wrote the post, I thought I had already chosen my word for 2012:  breathe. It made sense. My kids know that I tend to be a bit of a worrier, and a word that reminded me to take a deep breath, to let go seemed like a good idea.

Apparently, however, the word didn’t choose me. All week long, in various ways, a different word kept sounding and resounding:  warrior. I kept hearing it in whispers. Warrior. It showed up all the time, while watching a YouTube video of Ira Glass on storytelling,when reading a Steven Pressfield book, The War of Art, while skimming a couple of other random blog posts. I even went to yoga and was startled to remember that some of the most familiar poses are called Warrior I and Warrior II. Seriously.

Warrior? You’ve got to be kidding, I thought, and rejected the word outright. No way could I be a warrior. I have never been much of a fighter. From an early age, my personality seemed determined to plant itself firmly in the “turn the other cheek” camp. I’m a conciliator, a compromiser, a peace keeper, and I’m very happy with that. I like looking at all sides of situations and consider my ability to build win/win solutions one of my greatest strengths.

But warrior kept nagging me, however, so I wondered if there wasn’t something more going on. As I’ve told my kids for years, our greatest strengths are often the flip-side of our greatest weaknesses, a package deal of sorts. We don’t get one side of the coin without accepting the other. For me, the flip-side of being a peace-keeper is that I am sometimes blind to the times when it is appropriate to be a warrior, to fight for something I believe in.  And that’s the thing about blind spots–we are blind to them, so they are often hard to see. Sometimes we need help. I wondered if this word was creeping out from a blind spot, trying to get me to pay attention to an area I’ve neglected. That’s when I remembered an event from my childhood.

I was five years old when my family moved from Colorado to Texas at the end of my kindergarten year. To me, Texas was an exotic, new country. I was a shy, observant child and soon felt overwhelmed by the strangeness of the place, the differences from Colorado. It was flat for one thing, and humid, and the occasional rainstorm emptied the sky and flooded the streets. And did I mention the scorpions and tarantulas? Plus, all the people there had strange accents that took a while for me to understand.

When I started school the following September, my district didn’t offer kindergarten, so the first grade was really a repeat of everything I had already learned the previous year. I was bored, I didn’t fit in, and I’m guessing my teacher thought I was a nuisance. I’m being charitable here. At the time, I just assumed that my teacher hated me, further proven by the fact that she placed my desk in the middle of a circle of boys!

Two of the women I worked with, Bernie and Donna, had been in the business of counseling–and of life, for that matter–for 10 or 15 years longer than I had, and served as both mentors and friends. They told me about an interesting strategy:  they would often choose a word that represented an area in which they wanted to grow and have that word engraved on an inexpensive ID bracelet which they would wear until the artificial gold or silver finish wore off.

Back when Donna and Bernie first shared their idea, I became obsessed with the idea of carrying an important word around with me, a constant reminder of a quality I aspired to grow in myself. I remembered those ID bracelets from my childhood. I had one myself, a silver bracelet engraved with “Barbara” in fancy script. There was even a little fake green peridot, my birthstone, as an accent. Yet after hearing Bernie and Donna’s great idea, I couldn’t find one. As much as I searched (and these were the days before Amazon and the Internet) I had a hard time locating any bracelet, with or without birthstones. I reluctantly let the bracelet idea go.

I didn’t, however, let go of the idea of finding my word. What quality did I most want to cultivate? What word, if it were readily available to me, would help me make the better decision, the better life? There were so many to choose from:  grace, courage, faith, laughter. After a great while–and I’m talking several months–I finally decided on my word:

Attend

I know, I know. It’s kind of a strange word, but hear me out. I realized that most of my regrets were born from a reluctance to become an active participant in my own life. I tended to roll with the inevitable, to allow other people to overly influence the path of my life. The alternative? To attend, as in to show up for my own life. Not to sit this one out. Very quickly, I realized that a variation on this word is “attention,” which has also proved meaningful. The way you show up for your own life is to pay attention to what is happening. Very basic concept, I know, and one which perhaps many people have already figured out. I was in my 30′s by the time it finally made sense to me.

The idea of having a favorite word stayed with me, particularly as I noticed the increasing use of tattoos. Although I haven’t personally felt the need to go there, I have often wondered what word would be meaningful or important enough for me to permanently inscribe on my body.  It made me wonder what I’d do if I ever felt the need to change my word. Although “attend” or “attention” may always be important to me, I’ve been wondering lately about the idea of branching out. Am I ready for a new word?

Then, serendipitously, I read a recent blog post by Quinn McDonald (Geez. I’m beginning to sound like a Quinn groupie!) called Choosing Your Word. You can understand why the title caught my attention. In it, she says that she’s never really liked the idea of New Year’s Resolutions, a sentiment I share. Instead, she has for several years chosen a word, or even a short phrase, to capture her intention for the year. One year she chose “light,” the next year it was “step up.”

I love this idea. Instead of picking a resolution to guide my behavior (get to the gym, skip the cookies) it gives an opportunity to guide my thoughts, which are much more fundamental and the foundation to any behavioral change anyway. Plus, it offers me another way to focus my attention. Do you see why I got excited?

So, I’ve had a lot of fun thinking about my word for 2012. It’s an important decision, but much less permanent than one I figured had to be tattoo-worthy. It can be a noun (like “joy” or “play” or “energy”). It can be a verb (like “attend” or “connect” or “step up”). It can be an object (like “light” or “wings” or, say, “chocolate”). Whatever it is, I think it should create a little buzz of energy or joy or peace whenever you think about it. Throughout the year, it should provide opportunities to explore how this word could show up in your life, both in ways expected and totally out of the blue.

My word for 2012? I think I’m going with “breathe.” I’m excited to see what this word can teach me.

What’s your word?