I is for Interests

The A to Z blogging challenge brings us to I. The letter I begins many of my favorite words, Interests, Identity, Impossible....and I. It is incredibly important to respect the "I" that is me....and the "I" that is you.  

 INTERESTS

One of my favorite writing exercises of all time was one I gleaned from absorbing Julia Cameron's Artist Way teachings. She is one of many people who pushed me over the cliff into the free-falling freelance life I have today. Her idea of writing a list of 100 things that you love intrigued me. It seemed incredibly daunting at first, at the time having my very own opinion was foreign to me. I lived off of what others thought and said, believed and taught. I didn't have the confidence to say I liked something in the presence of someone who had a different opinion. Sad but true.

My students ranged in age from 5 to 18. Teaching creative writing was a fun way to play with imagination and story telling. We constructed silly poems, wrote letters to book characters and laughed a lot. For the most part they liked my lesson plans. But I forced this "list of 100 favorites" on them. It was important to me.
Every so often I revisit my list, add a line or two, cross out something that no longer interests me and just figure out who this person I refer to as I is.  

IDENTITY

     There is magic in this exercise. 

Write your list of 100. Mine include big ticket items like rivers, forests and shoes...and more specific things like red cowgirl boots, strong black coffee in a tall white ceramic mug and blue hydrangeas.

INTERRUPTIONS

While faithfully writing out your list, items may pop into your head that you do NOT like....

start an alternate list of those things, just to clear the noggin and be clear.

While I love art, I do not like still life paintings.

I may love shoes, but Crocs make me cringe.

To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

IMPOSSIBLE

A little more background, or spilling secrets...another exercise in the book involved declaring what you would do if you had an alternate life; my big three were, be an artist, writer and teacher. At that moment in time I was far from any of those things....strangely though, all three became my reality.

"What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible." ~ Theodore Roethke

IF

Now, what would you try IF you didn't have to do it perfectly?  What are you willing to do badly?  I have several things in this list. Things I am pretty sure I will not do well, may even fail wildly...but want to try.

Now that I have been there, tried that..I can report it's not so bad. Teaching was a big one for me. When I was asked to teach those creative writing classes, I could feel my heart trying to escape my chest. Talking in front of a group of people...even if the people in question were only 4 foot tall, petrified me. I committed to giving it a shot though...and loved it.  Roller derby was on that list several years ago...and now, my skater name is Skaty Cakes. ;)  Welding was another....I like metal art and wanted to give it a try. The artist showing me how commented on how fearless I was with the torch...then proceeded to tell me all the things I didn't consider. Turns out I wasn't fearless, just too clueless to realize the danger involved.

 "Do one thing every day that scares you" ~Eleanor Roosevelt 

 that's me in the pink helmet and crazy smile