All in Stride

So Josh and I went to Seattle today to walk around downtown and relish the last day of "summer". We walked on the ferry with Eli and the mega-stroller and planned to go up to the market and find some lunch. We ended up wandering around for like 2 hours and carrying the stroller up 7 or 8 flights of stairs due to broken elevators. Everyone and their great aunt Mildred was walking around too and I remembered how I feel about crowds. So we are striking out and Eli is getting fussy and has only slept like 30 mnutes in the stroller that we brought so it would be easier for him to nap. We head down towards SAM and stop in to see if I can use a gift certificate I've been carrying around for 3 years.

As we're walking out I see the van out front, on end, cut in half, looking official. I know it's his. This guy I graduated with... John Sutton turned into an instant art star after Cornish and now he has a permanant piece out front at the SAM. So I look at my reflection in the windows, my lame hair, my frumpy mom capris, my functional earth shoes and think how it could have been different. Could it? I don't know. Then Josh comes down the sidewalk (cause he couldn't go down the stairs..again) and he is pushing the stroller with our beautiful baby in it and I remember that however lame today was, I wouldn't want anything else in place of these. I get wrapped up in what I could have done, like a choose your own adventure book, and want to read all the possible endings before I actually commit to a choice. But when it comes down to it having people in your life that are your home that you can be anywhere and feel like there is a piece of you that belongs and is understood and wanted is worth more than the validation I would get from being a successful artist.

I talked with a friend this past week about being a mom with a career and the sacrifices and what you have to be prepared to let go of when you have kids. Her husband came in part way through the conversation and heard me talking about how hard it is to see people I graduated with in galleries and publications and that it makes me feel like I can never get back in it because I missed the boat. It is all about connections and I don't have any. And he said he goes through the exact same thing. This guy was the director of the E.R. at Harrison Hospital which services most of the peninsula and he resigned from that position to just be a regular ER physician so he could be with his family more. He said he hears reports on NPR and the doctors interviewed are guys he graduated with. He reads journals and sees research published by guys he graduated with and he thinks, "look at me I'm just a cog in the wheel at some backwater hospital in Bremerton." He's a successful DOCTOR providing for his family and respected in the community, and he feels like a career loser too.

So where does that leave me? Hopeless? No one is ever really there? When do we arrive? He suggested I write to the Cornish alumni association and tell them that I've been teaching art lessons in my grandparent's basement all summer, and sewing baby bibs and writing lesson plans for my 1 day a week art teaching job this fall. I thought about how funny that would be. I wonder if they would publish that in the newsletter? ....... Who cares..... I am having fun sewing and spending time making art with kids and watching my son try to figure out how to walk.