A Composite Career
My career has been a dance among three passions: Writing, Painting, and Teaching. Sometimes this has translated into traditional job titles like Creative Writing Department Chair or Middle School Art teacher. Other times, it's harder to define, often leaving me a little flustered when people ask, "So what do you do?"
The simple answer has always been: I write, I paint, and I teach. But there's more to it. I tell stories, and help others tell their stories, in the languages I know best: word and image. I have been a mural artist, a humanities instructor, a freelance art and education writer, a bad poet, a better fictionist, a faith and gallery artist, a life & creativity coach, a memoir essayist, a resume writer, the co-founder of a private school, and a creative retreat coordinator. And other things, too. This is the dance. Sometimes the dance wears me out. There is no apprenticeship for this kind of life. But that's part of why it's so satisfying. It's about my story, your story, our story. It's about our unwhispered secrets and idiosyncrasies and universal truths. The dance is about knowing that we'll make mistakes when learning new steps, and that these mistakes are beautiful because they help us decide how we will move from that point forward. And then, it's moving forward. |