Life’s Lessons: Learning What’s Possible

“We are cups. Constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.” – Ray Bradbury

The Buddhist adage, “When the student is ready, the teacher will come” resonates with artists of all ages. Whether we are muddling along or cycling fast, we are here to learn life’s lessons.  Yet, sometimes, it feels like we’re standing still in a crowded intersection. Stepping into the stream of a creative life takes boldness and a great deal of pluck. We’ve been here before. Remember riding up a steep hill for the first time on your bike and knowing you have to come down?

When women at a certain golden age step back and reflect, we notice our lives are like a crazy quilt full of heart punches and make do patches. Zigzag patterns of ups and downs mark our journeys. Each stage of our development offers another piece of knowledge to mix in, all part of the great soup of life. Choosing motherhood or career over being an artist doesn’t always have to happen. When we step back, we recognize that  both are possible once we accept the flow or dam of the creative life.

Like Mary who found time to write during her son’s soccer practice, or Leslie who sketched while waiting for the laundry to finish. Seeing a friend’s beautiful collage or a newly fired clay teapot may cause us some envy. It’s up to us to see the cracks in our schedule, to find more spontaneity and opening about our world. As Joseph Campbell remarked, “If you want to change the world, change the metaphor.”

My male friends are experiencing the inevitable shifts in coordination and athleticism, whether they’ve lived four decades, six or more. Focused on earning a living during their first forty years, the edges of their existence were often neglected. Many commented they saw what needed to be done and put their creative lives on a shelf. When asked to reflect about creativity and his life’s lessons, Tom said, “I didn’t even know what was possible then. I was too busy bringing home a paycheck.”

For many, living an artistic life is just too hard to squeeze in. But for those who let their imaginations emerge, personal action was taken. “There’s always going to be roadblocks, but, to a large degree, my destiny is in my hands,” Phil, a photographer friend of mine, observed. “I made my artist life happen.”

“The good news is that the first half of life is prescribed, whereas in the second half we get to write our own prescriptions,” Joan Anderson writes, author of The Second Journey. She suggests we start looking at each decade we’ve lived with new understanding and acceptance. At each achievement earned or crisis handled as windows to a larger world.  Celebrating and affirming these as passages as part of the life cycle, Anderson continues, as something to learn.

Teachers are everywhere—we don’t know from whom or where life’s lessons are coming. Consider the advice from Santana’s “You Are My Kind”:

“Don’t turn your back
On what you think you know
You never know, you know.“  – Becky Breed

Exercise for Living Creatively:

• Regardless of what family you were born into, or how much or little income and prestige you have, living a life is a pattern of ups and downs, losses and renewal. But sometimes, when we look back, those challenging times turn out to have a silver lining.
• Create two lists, one with the “ups” you’ve had in life, the second with the “downs.” Start in whatever decade you’d like.
• Reflect on these events or experiences. Select one or two where in looking back you’ve gained deeper understanding or a new perspective about the circumstances. Perhaps, these experiences served as a passage or bridge that opened a new part of your life, helped you get a different job or find a partner of your dreams. Maybe such an experience ignited your creative life.
• Now, write a personal essay, poem or chapter in your book about these junctures and celebrate life’s journeys. Or, create a personal mosaic or visual composition using memorabilia or found objects from your past. What did you learn?