I have missed writing here, but I have been writing, and taking some online courses which I have loved.
Story Circle Network chose a piece I had written for Story of the Month for October. I am posting it here with an apology for being absent so long from the blog.
Definitions of "art" vary widely in focus and scope depending on the research source . I like the wrap-around description that art is "the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance." This approach to thinking of any field using the skills or techniques of art., or skill in conducting any human activity broadens our concept, especially of ourselves as artists.
When my 70th birthday arrives, this year, I am thinking I will look back on my 60's as the most creative and productive period in my life...in my poetry, in my family narratives, in the widening of my circle of interest in literature and gardening and art (I do consider gardening an art!). BUT my twenty somethings were my forte for forging a foundation of education, shaping my choices for how I would spend my life, and with whom. My late twenties and thirties were my most creative and productive in bringing wonderful, unique, and precious human beings into the world. Nothing I ever write or read or experience will ever rival those moments of birth and breastfeeding and mothering.
My forties found me moving all over the world and increasing the most in my world view and understanding of other cultures. I grew a great deal in tolerance and understanding and navigating the rough rocky waters of teenage rebellion and spousal crisis! Did I get tired and throw up my hands at times? You bet. And I still do. But in my marriage, in my mothering, and now my grandmothering and in my relationships with my son's wives, I am crafting the most crazy and wild and wonderful art in the world...and I revel in being a woman. Whether I am gathering herbs I have grown to create a delicious and "work of art" meal, or bringing roses in to grace the table and fill my home with fragrance, caring for a husband recovering from surgery, managing a business, gathering people around my dining table, or building a memoir, I am filling my life canvas with rich color and depth of imagery and story.
I know I have choices. I can say no to keeping a two year old and her 4 year old sister for a week (I said yes to that last week). But when I say yes, and it means putting a story on hold or not blogging for a week, I don't feel like I have made a bad choice or that I am somehow deprived of my "real" work as an artist. It is just all part of my life, and my relationships. If I didn't have that I am not sure I would have the "want to" to write, craft or create And when I sit with those little girls and read book after book, sing with them, chase butterflies with them and help them learn about growing and picking and cooking with herbs from the garden, I am not only having the time of my life, I am passing a torch. If I never finish the memoir, I have written it. Making the memories is even more important than recording them. Who knows, Skye may be the one who eventually publishes an audiobook and podcasts about the filtered images of a grandmother. This week, she is enjoying learning to chain stitch with a crochet needle that belonged to her great grandmother. Maddie could be the one who composes music that we started making together. When she sits in my rocking chair and sings to me, the chair that holds her once held my mother and grandmother as they rocked me and sang to me. Jordann may paint many more works than my odd canvas of color. She cradles her doll, not knowing at all how many nurturing women, her grandmothers long generations back, have done the same. Lauren went to her first prom this weekend and came by for me to see her in her finery. Already, a beautiful young woman who is headed into choices that perhaps hold a part of me in the story. She wanted to see pictures from my high school proms, and pronounced me beautiful in the dress my mother made for me.
Just a note, though, I may pass the torch, but I am not quitting the race. And I am excited about every tomorrow I will have. What have I said? Maybe, just that it is in relationship (with my Creator, my family, my friends) that I experience the deepest level of creativity and the wildest surge of motivation. In the weaving of this rich tapestry of relationship....wild, wonderful, crazy art.
