November 5, 2018

The Great Figure Eight  ©Tracey Grumbach

Young and full of running
Tell me where's that taking me?
Just a great figure eight or a tiny infinity

Love is really nothing
But a dream that keeps waking me
For all of my trying
We still end up dying
How can it be?

-John Mayer; Edge of Desire

Dear Driftwood,

It is funny where life takes you.  Some people seem to have a life that progresses in a fairly straight line while others seem to wander in a serpentine manner, curving this way and that and then back again. Watching my children grow up and start making a path in this world for themselves has me reflecting on when I was young and considering where my life would take me. 

If you had asked me, back when I was my youngest children's age (10), what I would be doing when I was 46 years old, art would have been the last thing to come to mind. To be honest, I could not even have dreamed of what I am doing today. For one thing I had an art teacher in elementary school that basically laughed at my art work and told me, "You are not an artist and never will be." Those words rung so deep within my soul that from that day forward I never even tried my hand at art, until, of course, I was an adult. Those words, however, did push me toward wanting to be a teacher, a teacher that encouraged people, not put them down. 

Secondly, I could not have even imagined, back in 1982, when the hottest technology was the Commodore 64 computer and when music CDs had just been introduced to the market, that I would be creating and selling art on the same device with which I make wireless phone calls, browse the internet, video call my kids, and listen to music. It is just mind-boggling. I never ever would have dreamed such a far-out concept and yet here I am doing just that, creating mobile art on iPhones and iPads. I am also still teaching, just as I knew I wanted to back 36 long years ago. Some paths for me were straight as an arrow and others are still meandering in curvy lines across the map of my life.

As a mom, it is a joy to watch my adult children walk their own paths and watch my youngest twins just beginning to imagine theirs. Some of my children seem to have a straighter path than others but life events...love, jobs, tragedy, and even luck, can add some twists and turns along the way. I wouldn't have it any other way. Life would be pretty boring if we all walked straight, parallel lives...after all, isn't the greatest beauty always found off the beaten path?

Well, that is all for now. I hope your path is clear and full of beauty, wherever you are, my dear Driftwood. I'll write again soon.

Love,
Me