She Who Has a Why...

When I started this website over a year (!) ago, I had this notion that I would post lively anecdotes about my exciting artsy and crafty ventures along with other goofy tidbits about my personal life.

I imagined I would knit and bake up a storm and throw in an occasional book or movie review. I ambitiously thought I would post an illustration a day.

Well, I've managed to knit one scarf and bake exactly one apple pie and a batch of chocolate cupcakes (above) in the last 12 months. The daily illustrations petered out after about 9 days and I told myself that every couple of weeks was still pretty good considering that I'm working a full-time job.

Just when the guilt was starting to get overwhelming, pregnancy hit me. It was my get out of jail free card and I settled nicely into my morning sickness and prenatal yoga and thought little of my website...which was when I realized I was making this more of a chore than something to enjoy and share.

For as long as I can remember I've been obsessed with the idea of a calling. I find myself drawn to stories about people who discover their true talents in the most unlikely way and I have searched high and low for my own. I've travelled the world, gotten a fancy education (amassing debt in the process), worked bizarre jobs including creating kitchy hand-crafted glassware, choreographing dance routines for inner city kids, and commandeering ex-convicts-turned-safety-officers as a dispatch operator.

In my junior year in college, I started to keep a journal. I was partial to small blue spiral bound notebooks and I discovered that dumping my thoughts onto paper was the best stress releaser. Sometimes I would write for hours, ignoring my homework and upcoming exams. Gradually, I developed a routine of waking up early so that I could write first thing in the morning accompanied by a cup of coffee and bagel. I suppose it was a kind of meditative practice though I scoffed at anything remotely new age.

For the next 12 years, I continued to write every day, rain or shine. I didn't like writing at home so my writing habit was conspicuously public. In every city I lived, I searched for cafes that would let me linger for hours without making me feel like a leper. I filled boxes and boxes of small spiral bound notebooks packed with my tiny handwriting.

People found me intriguing. My friends thought my writing sessions were odd, but they accepted it as one of my quirks. Strangers often struck up conversations asking me what I was writing. I hedged and evaded explaining exactly what it was I furiously scribbled in my notebooks -- invariably they would tell me that they too have always wanted to write a book. They bought me coffee and offered to take me out to dinner. I seemed to be shrouding myself with this mysterious aura of depth and creativity that people wanted to be near.

So what was I writing? Looking through the journals that have survived my many moves, my manifesto apparently focussed considerably on becoming a size 4 and attaining a hot boyfriend. Think Bridget Jones without any humor. Underlying the fluff, though, I seemed to be trying to figure out how to be comfortable in this awkward skin of mine. I was searching for that calling, the true talent, the big kahuna. A long time ago I read a quote that went something like he who has a why can bear any how. Frankel or Frankel quoting Neitzche or some such said it, but I've always loved that quote.

What I loved about writing in my journal was that there was no censorship, no rules, no shoulds. I felt free after filling a few pages and what I wrote didn't matter. I write this in the past tense not because I don't keep a journal anymore because I do, but I don't scrawl in it as ferverently as I used to. As a pregnant lady, worrying about my figure is pointless and I have a hot husband so maybe I've run out of things to write about. Yet, I do miss having a ritual, the comforting constant.

Oh, and the whole "my true calling" business? It's still lurking out there, I'm sure, but I'm starting to suspect that it's less about discovering some astronomical innate skill and more about cultivating a life where contentment is the main focus. And that's where this blog/website fits in. I want this to be a means for me to try different things that I like, to play, to not feel obligated, to share.