We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves. — Thomas Merton
I wandered for some time — 15 different addresses in three states over the course of 9 years. My mom had a sheet of paper dedicated to listing my various numbers and addresses, one after the other crossed off as I moved. There was lots of personal drama in my life, and there was the ever-growing list of random jobs.
The first temp job I was offered after moving to NH with J was in the accounting department of a small magazine publishing company. It was a straight data entry position, a week or two long. Sit at a desk with a stack of numerical data and type. It sounds boring, but there were lots of jobs like this in the temp world, and I preferred them to anything else. Once your mind and your fingers get into the groove, data entry's like a meditation. There's a pleasing rhythm in the clicking of the keys, and it's satisfying to work your way through stacks, line by line, one number after another. I was very fast, and I was very accurate. So fast the women in the office began to call me, "Speedy G." They extended my assignment, and added more responsibilities.
Before long I wasn't a temp anymore, and found myself with my own little office, surrounded by stacks of checks and reports. Even though I was on salary, when I was done my duties for the day (which was often very early because of those speedy fingers), I would simply get up and walk out. To this day I have no idea how I managed to get away with that. It wasn't audacity, but sheer ignorance of the way the 9-5 way workplace functions. The duties of the job weren't at all mentally taxing, and I'd go home at night with my creative energy intact and make little pieces of art while J worked on creating beautiful things in his wood shop. I didn't love NH. In fact I found it unbearably quiet and boring. The people seemed cold. Everyone was a stranger, but not many of them wanted to talk to me. Forced into solitude, with no external distractions or random teachers and their tales, I started to settle down and see what I could teach myself.
J had a print that we hung on the wall wherever we went, a woodblock by Utagawa Hiroshige called, "People on a Bridge Surprised by Rain." Until recently I used to dream about crossing over bridges constantly, and I'd look at the print feeling a great sense of empathy for that solitary figure with his hat pulled down. There he is, trying to get from one place to another, and wherever it is he's going it's important enough for him to get there that he's willing to do it in less-than-ideal circumstances. And for us bystanders, there's no way to know where he came from or where he's going. You can't see his face, his age, or his expression. As a result, we can't judge him. He could be happy or sad about the rain, about his journey. Maybe he's terrified and regretful, wishing he could turn back before the storm gets worse, before the bridge gets washed away forever, before he gets lost. Maybe he's enthusiastic and determined, focused solely on his destination. We're forced into simply observing the scene with non-attachment. Not a bad place to be.
I wanted to reward this soggy traveler for his perseverance, so after my data entry job I'd come home and work on tracing and transporting him to greener, mixed media pastures...
Wherever I put him he soldiered on.
Aside from being fun to make, I didn't think too much of these little cards, but J loved them and offered to make me some frames. The originals are small, so I had color copies made of each, and once J finished the frames and mats I decided to hang them in my otherwise bare office at the publishing company.
Because I stuck out like a sore thumb in this little NH town (short platinum hair and a decidedly uncorporate wardrobe), I had attracted the attention (not in
that way) of the Art Director who worked on the other side of the building, in the creative area. This was the home of the designers and editors, and the few times I randomly needed to venture there I felt incredibly intimidated. Not surprisingly I also experienced a twinge of regret about the words of my creative writing teacher and my abandoned education. What act of God
had kept me out of the writing profession? As far as I could tell, it had been 100% my doing, thus far.
One day the Art Director ventured over to my side of the building, "the business end" so to speak. Poking his head in my office, he spotted the 4 framed images and asked me where they were from. "I made them" I replied. He was one of those people the world needs more of. He possessed a bottomless cup of bubbly enthusiasm, and he didn't keep it to himself. He was equally generous with praise, and he stood in my office and showered it down upon me until I thought I would pass out from embarrassment. Then he said 8 words that changed the course of my life. "You should come work in the art department!"
"I don't have an art degree. I just dabble around. I have no graphic design experience at all."
"Well you have an eye" he said, "and that's not something that can be taught. The programs we use can be learned."
"An eye." When I told my mom about this conversation she was wary. I had just finally landed a steady job, with health insurance and a little office, and even though it was beyond bizarre that someone as bad at math as I am was working with numbers all day I think she was understandably concerned to see me give up what I had gained to chase this new mirage. My mom. I'd always ask for her advice, but for years I seldom took it. I know that my fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants lifestyle kept her on the edge of her seat, but my ensuing need to prove to her that it would succeed is no doubt a big part of why it did. "You always have to learn everything the hard way." she observed. She was right. I went out and bought my first computer, a Mac, so I could start learning some graphic design programs. Sure enough, they were hard.
The Art Director and I devised a plan. He didn't think the publisher would allow me to jump from accounting to art based solely on one recommendation and 4 pieces of art. He suggested I leave my accounting job and take the summer to learn the programs, which he promised to help with. He also told me that he'd spend the summer rallying for the creation of a new entry level position, "Art Assistant," tell the publisher I'd spent the summer taking classes in graphic design, and hire me back in the fall. At the time J was working steadily doing carpentry with our landlord, and we were simultaneously paying off some of our rent by doing improvement projects around the property. Could I take the Art Director at his word? Could I leave the job I had to chase a job that didn't yet exist? For better or for worse, leaving was something I'd become well-versed in. I turned in my resignation, and packed up my office.
I spent that summer working as a carpenter's helper, sometimes with J and sometimes on other crews. In Carharts and a pair of J's old work boots, my accessories were reduced to a leather tool belt that held a measuring tape I couldn't read and a dangling hammer I seldom needed but felt proud to carry anyway. After work I was tutored in design programs by both the art director and J's mom, who lived nearby and had made a great career out of graphic design herself. The Art Director kept his promise, and in the fall I returned to the publishing company and took my seat on the creative side of the building. That was 12 years ago, and design has been my career ever since.
Here's my basement. No, just kidding, though we did have quite a river babbling down there this week, and trees just like this one are what our old house is built from. When the bedroom was upstairs one could lay in bed and look up at the bark covered beams, hand cut over 200 years ago. The downstairs is slightly less rustic. The basement...well, the basement has a mud floor, stone walls and a river running through it, so you can imagine what it must be like. Frogs live in our basement. I only venture down there when it's absolutely necessary, about once a year, and the rest of the time I pretend that it doesn't exist. Apparently all the previous owners of this house did much the same throughout the centuries.
