Becca Rowan is a writer and the author of Life in General, a collection of essays about mid-life as experienced by an American woman in the 21st century. Becca loves creating connections by sharing stories on her popular blog.
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A gypsy, a poet, a baker, a king? Might I have been any of these things? A fascinating question, and similar to one that was posed in my Task List for last week's The Artist's Way assigment. "If you had five other lives to lead, what would you do in each of them?" we were asked to consider. Julia Cameron, the author of The Artist's Way, declared that she would be a pilot, a cowhand, a physicist, a psychic, a monk. She suggested that we "not think too carefully, just write down whatever came to mind." So, off the top of my head, I wrote down dancer, teacher, doctor, singer, race car driver. The only one that really surprised me on the that list was doctor - I simply can't stand the sight of any blood! Truthfully, I rarely consider this kind of question. I don't know if that means I'm not creative, or unmotivated, or just plain unimaginative. Maybe it's a sign that basically I'm pretty satisfied with what I turned out to be - wife, mother, musician, writer, friend. My existence seemed pre-destined. My parents were grade school sweethearts, I was born smack in the middle of the baby boom generation, and followed society's well laid plan for a girl child raised in the 60's.
The pivotal instance that set my life in motion has to be the day my friend Lisa arranged for me to study piano with her teacher. Only 13 years old at the time, during my first year of study, my lesson was scheduled right before my teacher's star pupil, a 15 year old boy. Occasionally, I would stay behind long enough to hear him play the first few bars of the Chopin Military Polonaise or Brahms Requiem. I was totally enthralled with a teenage boy who could play music with such love and passion. Within the next few years, we began playing duets together. By the time I was 17 and he was 19, we were quite seriously in love. And when I was 20 - you guessed it. Reader, I married him.
So of course my life would have been completely different had I not gone to that first piano lesson. Not only would I not have my husband, I wouldn't have my son. Nor would I have music, at least not in the capacity I now do. I would likely have stuck to writing, which was my first passion in life, finished my four years of college, and maybe become a journalist, or even a full fledged hippie (I was a little radical back in the early 70's!).
But rather than feel excited or tempted by "what might have been," I feel more than a little frightened. How perilous is life, and how often we make decisions that lead us to life altering events without even knowing it. So - who might I have been? I don't know, but I'm awfully glad I ended up being just who I am.
I'm clearing the decks around here. Yep, I went on a bender in my basement today, and toted whole loads of stuff out to the curb for the trash man. I do this periodically, even though it barely makes a dent in the years and years worth of stuff that's heaped down there. There have been three generations of our family who've lived in this house, so there's everything from my father-in-law's 78 records of Franklin Roosevelt (I kid you not) to my husband's model cars and my son's outdated computers. The history of an American family, in artifact form, right in my basement. I, however, can be really merciless when it comes to tossing to the curb. I just need to be in the right mood. An ancient broken computer and monitor - gone. Some ugly tattered throw pillows and scruffy bric-a-brac - gone. Batches of cassette and VHS tapes - useless. Three ring binders filled with copies of meeting minutes from one of my musical groups going back 20 years - outta here!
So now I'm hot and sweaty, with a huge embarrasing pile of stuff lined up on my lawn. Nevertheless, I'm feeling pretty satisfied with myself. I've cleared some space, provided a little breathing room so I can set up my ironing board (very!) occasionally, or even retreat down there to read or write in a cool, quiet place should the fancy strike me.
Somehow I feel like I've cleared a corner of my mind as well. Once in a while I think we all need to do some housecleaning in our brains. Mine gets so cluttered up with my lists of "have to do's" and "should be doings" and "wish I could's." It gets so crowded up there in my mind that it's like my basement - there's no room to do anything productive because of all the junk that's cluttering up your thoughts. It's amazing how all that clearing out seems to have triggered a mental sorting out as well. I actually feel as if there's a nice corner of my brain that's now all neat and tidy, waiting for me to fill it with some really interesting ideas!
So tomorrow (assuming I can drag my aching bones out of bed), I'll be ready to tackle a whole new project, and who knows what it will be!
One of my favorite gardens is the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. We visited San Franciso in 2001, and were city weary and slightly stressed after several days of sightseeing downtown. We took the long bus ride out to the Park and spent a lovely afternoon wandering the quiet, cool gardens. It was an oasis of peace in our holiday.
In Japanese culture, a garden is considered one of the highest art forms, expressing in a limited space the essence of nature through the use of specially selected plants and stones. Japanese legend attests that stones are actual beings with spirits that need to be treated with reverence.
Tranquility brews like steeping green leaves- Japanese tea garden
Stone pathways disguise living spirits leading to higher ground
Pagoda rises beckoning amidst greenery paying homage to Buddha
Serene pathways guide travelers toward peace our souls breathe deeply For more garden haiku, go here
