Watch It!

I have always been a people watcher, when I was a child I sat, almost mute, at the holiday table. In fear of being trampled upon by words. It was a raucous table, everyone spoke at the same time. My Father's Mother had many siblings who had spouses along with adult children.
I did not speak. I listened and observed. Besides it was the fifties, I spoke when spoken to.

By listening I learned timing, and wit. By watching I learned expression and the art of reading people. I hate crowds when I am walking among them, but if I am able to sit and scrutinize, I am in heaven. When I do speak in a group, I try to make my words matter.

It is important for me to be heard. If I feel that I am not seen, not understood I will stop talking.
That is the beginning of the end.

Watch it.

Not Smart Enough

I grew up wanting to be an elementary school teacher. I would set up my stuffed animals and dolls in a line and call on them to answer questions I posed to the group. In High School, while researching schools my mother told me: "You're not smart enough to go to college". I was taught not to question my mother, so I decided to go to art school. My dad had always wanted to go to art school but his parents told him: "Men don't go to art school" and so it went.

In my third year as a Graphic Design major, I wondered if this was really what I wanted. It dawned on me that I was trying to fulfill the dream of my dead father.. Again, my mother stepped in: "But you can't do anything else!"

Now that I'm all grown up, it's very clear that I would have done just as well as my peers did, if not better, in college. Life is funny that way. When you have enough years under your belt to be able to just sit and look back sometimes you realize it all worked out.

Turns out I did get to teach, though not in the conventional way I had imagined. I taught various art classes at a technical school, I taught children at recreation centers, I schooled staff on a computer system and I even got to stand on stage and present that same system to an auditorium of avid participants.

People listened, and learned.

Hear that Mom?