I Am This Woman

I am — this close to signing up for two classes at the community college continuing ed program. In fact, I’m rather amazed at myself for even thinking I could do it, but the more I thought, the better I felt about it.

The classes? oil painting and piano.  !!!!

I might as well take a tatting class while I’m at it, and perhaps croquet lessons.

My rationale is that when I took photography back when I was teaching part-time, I was never busier but I also never felt more alive to be finally doing something that I’d always wanted to do. I’ve been saying for years that I “really should take piano lessons” and that when I was 50, I would take up oil painting.

Well, instead of the Italian class that I thought I was going to take (all of the times conflict with a previous commitment), I browsed the catalog and lo and behold, both oil painting and piano occur at times that are sensibly and ostensibly lunch hour and on a weekend.

Handwriting on the wall? or am I making my own destiny?

Did this start with teaching myself the three-needle bind-off and cabling? Can we blame this on knitting?

Maybe!

All I know is that creativity breeds more creativity. There is always success and failure when you branch out and try something new (I suck at knitting lace, but that will come at another time, perhaps), but it does something to your brain (wow, that’s real scientific), and encourages more risk-taking and creative impulses.

(Oh ok, what is going on in your brain is actually neural pathways being excited and warmed up, used to capacity, and even new neurons being mapped and formed. Use these pathways more often and, like a good dirt road, they will begin to be easier to drive over and more familiar shortcuts to places you really want to go. The somewhat more scientific explanation.)

So, maybe I’ll be painting, playing AND writing come fall semester!