snow day #47
I'll admit to feeling joy when I got the call from the school district this morning that class was canceled. I think I've mentioned before that I spend some of my time working in the public schools as a one-on-one Ed Tech for kids who need a little extra attention. I have a little buddy at school that I've been working with for a few months and I love this kid so much. He is so smart and clever and makes it his personal goal to be one step ahead of me with his strategies to get out of doing any kind of work at all. So I think we're both enjoying the day off from those patterns today.
But it's also giving me a chance to get caught up on some seeding and quote work and continuing to sort through some pretty heavy thoughts about experience.
As you know if you've been reading these posts, several different paths have gotten me to this point in my life. It could easily be confused with flakiness, if read a certain way, and at my darkest, I go there too with negative self-talk about never following through or never achieving mastery of one thing before moving on to the next. But in thinking about soil structure a lot the last few weeks, I've come to realize it's more akin to layers than anything. Each layer builds on the one before and allows the seed and root system the kind of nutrition and structure necessary to thrive. My training and work as an actor informs my ability to teach which informed my ability to work as an Executive Assistant which informs my ability to work with clients as I make their wedding gowns and accessories (learning to sew from my mom didn't hurt either). My work as a musician and festival director informs my ability to understand event management and organization and best serve the planners and wonderful brides and grooms that hire me to create for their weddings.
I guess all of this is just to say that the roads I have walked to get to where I am have been immensely valuable and not at all the detours that they are often perceived to be. I'm not arriving at my road at the age of 43. I have been on it all along. And it turns and bends and there are hills and valleys along the way. It has been beautiful and unrecognizably scary at different points. And there's more to come. As we look for a farm, as I shift away from touring as much as I have been, and as I learn to advocate for what today needs and not what worked 3 years ago or what next year might require.