What other life would you choose?

Renaissance Rebecca has a post today that intrigues me. "List ten other lives you'd like to lead and tell why" or something to that effect.

Click here to see what she chose and think what you would choose.

I'd like to lead the life of sailboat captain for just a few weeks. The quietness and the wind in my face, the sun warming me, would be delightful.

When I was much younger, I would have loved to work on a working cattle ranch. To spend time on horseback everyday was such a dream of mine.

I would like to be part of a speaking tour where I could talk to groups about the harm being done to the future of this country unless we wake up to the chemical pollution of our water, our air and our food.

If I could, I'd love to lead a dancing excercise class. That is my favorite method of moving all the muscles in my body and keeping fit.

In another life, I would sing! Singing calms the nerves, soothes and energizes us. I always wished I could sing with my husband and our sound would be beautiful. His voice was excellent, but my voice was never that good. However, I did sing for many years in the church choir and always felt great afterward.

But of all the things I have wanted to do in my life, teaching seems to be the one thing I enjoy most at this time. Helping others to gain the knowledge, the confidence, the belief that they can do what they want to do.

Writing and teaching others is the life I want and the life I plan to lead.

                               Students in my class at John C. Campbell Folk School

Writers Circle - Where writers will feel at home.

April is almost here and my new studio is almost ready for visitors. We will hold the first class on Tuesday, April 6, at 10:00 a.m. New tables and chairs are in place for the students. My carpenter promised me he would be back to exchange an overhead lighting fixture and to replace the pet door panel that has outlived one dog but is about to be dumped into the trash. That pet door is an eyesore in my otherwise lovely room. The old carpet has been torn out and new wood flooring brightens up the place.

Mary Mike is making curtains and a table cover for the studio. I spent yesterday dusting off books and replacing them in categories on my bookshelves. My biggest treasure find while remodeling is the folding screen I have set up to divide my office from the classroom. I'll make a photo of it and share it with you.

"Who are You and Why do You Write" is the title of the first class. I'll teach at least one class per month  throughout the spring and summer. Guest instructors will teach, also. On Saturdays we'll offer poetry classes and self publishing classes as well as Spiritual Writing and creative writing.
Rosemary Royston will teach a class on Humor in Poetry. She writes delightful poems, and I look forward to sitting in on that session.
Mary Mike Keller will teach a three session course including genealogy with writing about ancestors. That's a subject I love, also.
Estelle Rice, author of a poetry chapbook, Quiet Times, will also teach a class for Writers Circle, the name of my studio and the name of the writing program.
Joyfully, I look toward a new beginning - teaching, taking classes with other writers, working with instructors, and meeting many new and interesting people.
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If you live in the area of Ashville, NC, be sure to put June 4 and 5 on your calendar for the Blue Ridge Bookfest. I'll be there and we hope to have our anthology done and on display by then.

Creativity, a Healing process

My father and mother when they were young and happy, never knowing what would happen in their senior years.

Today while exercising all alone in my "private pool" at Brasstown Resort, I thought about the lowest points in my life and how certain people appeared and showed me the way out of my despair. Both these people were creative women.

In 1975 my mother collapsed with a ruptured aneuryism that bled into her brain. Our family was decimated by this sudden event. After months in the hospital she recovered enough to come home. She knew none of us at first and thought my father was her Papa.
My family pulled together and worked out ways of sharing responsibility for the first six months. By then she had recovered but was left with no short term memory. My sisters had to go back to their families, my brothers had a business to run.
Over the next ten years I took care of her with the help of a good woman who came in half a day every day of the week. I deeply grieved for the mother who was gone, but loved the mother who was more like a daughter to me. That decade was exquisitely torturous. I adored the times I had with Mother telling me about her childhood, my father's young years, but I became depressed with all the responsibility and being on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I felt I'd had to give up my own life.
I was fortunate to find a wonderful art teacher who reached down and lifted me up from my despair. That was when I learned the healing power of creativity. In class I became absorbed in her teaching and my painting. Happiness settled over me like a warm and comforting blanket, and I left the studio every week smiling. Verna became a dear friend and shared her story of creativity healing.
When Verna's husband died, she was lost for a time, not knowing what she should do with her life. Trained as an artist, she decided to open an art studio for beginners, and through creating lesson plans and teaching others to paint, she became renewed. She healed herself. Her students adored her humor, her warmth and her caring way of teaching. I could never repay her for what she did for me.

My mother died in 1985 and once again I spiraled into despair. Verna had remarried and given up her studio. I seldom mustered the motivation to paint. I couldn't find anything I wanted to do that helped me with my grief. My husband saw my suffering and eventually he and my brother Hal made it possible for us to move to Clay County NC where Barry could continue with the company.
Once again a special person came into my life. Nancy Simpson, poet and teacher, called me one evening. Through her classes, I began writing on a regular basis and publishing my work. Because of her and Linda Smith, a fellow writer, I attended the Netwest critique groups, I signed up for writing classes at JCCFS and found that I loved learning in this non-threatening environment. Every chance I had I took a class, poetry, essay writing with Steve Harvey, memoir with Ruth Zefuss, classes with Carol Crawford, many poetry classes with Nancy Simpson and others. My creative juices poured out on the page and endorphins rushed to my brain and chased away the darkness.

Today I am happy although we have been fighting "The Beast" for months now. After a few months of losing the ability to focus on anything but my husband's illness, I am once again excited about creating poetry, essays, articles and now I'm learning photography.

I would advise anyone who is down in the dumps and can't seem to get back up, to take a class, learn something new, engage your passion in whatever you can do that is creative and will make the brain concentrate on building or making something new, something that is unique. Our self worth increases when we create anything that is of our on invention. People live longer who have hobbies or work that absorbs them in the process of doing. The hours fly by so fast you hardly know it when you get involved in a task or a project. Nothing makes me feel as good as a finished story or poem. Whether I mail it or put it away in a file, I am fulfilled.
Indulge your creativity and find a new life, a happy life and if you can share this with others, the joy grows more and more.

I probably should not be posting this time of night when I'm half asleep and bone tired, but forgive me if I ramble.
My class last Tuesday was excellent with about ten delightful students of all ages. Our oldest is 85 and writes with the confidence of a seasoned writer. All of us are looking forward to his sharing his memories from as far back as World War II. We discussed organizing our stories in folders and writing down the turning points or milestones in our lives. One man couldn't wait to begin heading his folders. I have a good, good, feeling about this class. The trust is already there. I must confess I just love writers and being with writers, beginners or professional.

All of my life I have dealt with stressful situations by writing. Writing is therapy for me and I'm grateful I enjoy it. A few weeks ago as I waited in a room filled with people young and old starring into space, encircled by arms of loved ones, hands griped in hands, the tension and fear was thick enough to choke a person. I pounded on my Neo, a little keyboard I can use anywhere. I would later download my writing to my computer. Like a reporter at the scene of an accident I keyed in all the characters, described faces, body shapes, expressions and actions. I learned this from Darnell Arnoult an excellent writer who says she keeps a notebook with her and gets some of her best characters from watching people in waiting rooms.
I don't plan to use these people in a fiction piece, but it helped me through my waiting time to write about them and imagine what they were facing.
Do you study and examine people you see and wonder about them? Do you write about them? Most writers are observant of the people around them in restaurants, standing in lines and anywhere they can watch people. Try it the next time you have to wait in a doctor's office. Just make notes on what you see in the faces of those who are there in the room. Describe their physical attributes. Notice the difference in noses and describe them. It is fun and a good way to get your mind occupied if you happen to have a troublesome situation you'd rather not think about.
I'd love to hear from anyone who has ever done that or who thinks it might be a good thing to do.