I love to set goals for myself. The whole process of thinking about who I am, where I’ve been, what I want, challenges, learning opportunities, and then the steps to take in the proposed direction is fun for me. Except when I’m depressed of course. 

In 2009 I started trying to add art back into my busy life. By the end of that year I crumbled under the pressure to do too much and be better than I really am, while facing the very real mistakes and struggles of parenthood, volunteer worker, wife, homemaker, and friend. I withdrew from everything and reevaluated who I am, what I enjoy, where I want to be in the future and what resources I had to work with. 

I started pursuing my dormant artistic side with a hesitant passion. I set up challenges and loose goals that would move me in the direction of becoming an artist. This process was jump started by a trip to France for an Artist Retreat, followed by classes at our local Senior Center and to date included enrolling in ‘real’ school at one of our community colleges. 

This month I moved a step down the path by learning to matt my own watercolor paintings and then prepared and submitted several works for a juried student art show. Six pieces were chosen to be displayed and one received an Honorable Mention Award (with a gift card from a local art store).

Today is another big step.

My car is packed and ready to go to my first Open Studio event. I had set this year as a goal to participate in this very show but decided not to spend the $175 fee to host it in my own home along with some other things going on in our life.

Then I found out the school I was attending was participating and allowed students and faculty to set up their own tables for free. Of course I waited until the last minute to decide to be involved but here I go, jumping off the high dive. 

It helps that we are moving to Japan in a few months because I realized I will not have room in a small apartment to display my 15+ framed paintings so I’m selling many of my originals. 

This whole process, framing, submitting, pricing, feedback from teachers, has freed me to offer my creations to the world. The next step will likely included dealing with rejection and maybe if I’m lucky saying goodbye to some of the fruit of my life. 

We are moving. We have moved before and we will most likely move again but this is  kind of a big one. 

My husband was accepted for temporary assignment in Japan for 2 years with his current employer. We have lived in the Silicon Valley’s south bay area for 21 years. The majority of our 30 year married life was here, and now it’s all going to change. There is a chance we will come back to this area when our 2 years are complete but there is also a chance we will never live here again. That feels so strangely sad to think about. 

Before this we lived in Austin, TX for a little over 4 years and before that we lived in Southern CA for about 5 years. Before that I lived in the San Joaquin Valley and the husband lived up and down the Western coastline from Washington to Southern California, well after moving from Korea that is. 

There is much about this adventure that I look forward to and know we will enjoy but the loss is really starting to sink in.  There is the loss of the beautiful, comfortable and familiar that we love about California and the friends and family that we have enjoyed being close to.

But I realized the other day the most painful part of endings is not what I am leaving but the death of the dreams unfulfilled. The people I had hoped to get to know that I didn’t. The places I had hoped to visit and/or paint ‘ala plein aire’ and never did. And the way I had hoped our relationships would have been enjoyed. The way I pictured us parenting. Those things will never happen…at least not in the stage of our life I had pictured them. Not in this house (or houses), not in this neighborhood and really because we have all grown up and grow closer to the final ‘ending’, many, many things will never happen that I had hoped would. 

This too is a taste of death. This too will have a taste of resurrection and new life. This too I will have to face with trust in one who holds my future in His hands. 

My word for this year is Fearless. I’m diving in deep but there will be tears. 

When I added my name to the wait list of two college courses, after a 32 year absence from school, I knew I would learn many things. 

I expected to learn about color. I hoped that would help in my future watercolor paintings and might inspire me to pick up oil painting again. 

I expected to learn to draw and I realized that might not be so much about gathering new information but more like assignments that forced me to practice a skill that needed sharpening. 

I assumed there was both information and practice that would be attained in both classes: Color and Beginning Drawing. 

What surprised me is how much character development would take place. That I would be learning Patience and Perseverance. Not so much in the form of gathering information about the two but by practicing self discipline, choosing to rein myself in from the many distractions of life. This has led to better time-management based on a new set of priorities. 

I’m partly motivated by wanting to get a good grade and/or to hear my teacher (and possibly a few fellow students and friends) say ‘well done’. But I’m also motivated by my own desire to improve and enjoy looking at what I’ve created. I want my projects to be pleasing to me, to be beautiful. 

In the past I have lost interest in paintings or drawings I have begun, stopping before finishing many of them. But now that I’m school with deadlines, grades and tuition, I’m motivated to complete each assignment. 

I’m amazed at how much improvement I’ve seen in my work in this environment. The quality teaching in both Jr. College classes has motivated me to do my best and push to keep improving. The deadlines keep my perfectionism from reworking a piece for all eternity. 

In a world of multi-tasking I’m experiencing the joy of being present and focusing on one thing at a time, while my Acoustic Alchemy Pandora station plays softly in the background. Who knew going back to school at 51 would be so good for me?!