Yesterday was Tuesday. Tuesday is typically my favorite day of the week. Yesterday was a very unusual day. It's funny how art affects your mood.
A day at the Art Institute of Chicago with Trisha and Lauren was perhaps just the needed "escape" from life. We arrived at the Aurora train station just in time to watch the doors of our intended 9:20am train close on us from the opposite side of the tracks. It was a fun hour long wait until the 10:20am departure of the train that eventually took us to Union station.
The trolly to the Institute was free. And as well we know, free is good. After all that's why we went; Tuesday is free admission at the Art Institute.We got on the trolly and just before we boarded I checked my voicemail to learn that I got the job I'd interviewed for the day before. So this Tuesday was turning out to be decent. A day downtown with a couple friends. Free admission, free trolly rides, and employment if I wanted it.
But that was where the tables began to spin a bit. And I started looking at the art on the walls and seeing things for not just what they were, but what they might be, or what they could be, or what they were intended to be. Interpretation is such an odd thing.
She wanted to know if I wanted the job. And I didn't really know. And I had to decide. So I looked at art - a lot of art. And tried to enjoy it, to really soak it in - to wonder who thought what - as the brush created the stroke that put that color in that place . . . why? I probably over analyzed. "It's not like I'm making a life or death commitment," I finally rationalized. "It's a temp-to-perm commitment. And it's a really good job Kate. Assistant Manager. Are you kidding yourself? Come on. Take the job. It's right where you want to work. Right where you want to live. Did you hear the part about training people? Isn't that what you want to do? If this is not a gift from God, what are you waiting for? A box wrapped in golden paper handed you on a sliver platter?"
And there was gold in that painting, the one I was trying to make sense out of when that train of thought was running past me like the one we'd missed that morning. And then, in my mind the door closed. Just as it had before me at 9:20am. She wanted a decision. And that's when I knew I had to call and take the job.
I went to the city yesterday morning with two friends to enjoy the day and appreciate art. One direction I traveled unemployed the other I ventured knowing I will have an income and not suffering from "starving artist syndrome." But on the way home, I traveled with a mood somewhat somber. Having been moved deeply by several of the images and diligent work I saw reflected in the creative expressions displayed there.
Yesterday I found something new in art. In the art I found a freedom to accept a challenge to be a purer artist. An artist more true to herself and influenced less by who the world thinks she is.
Back in college, in 2004 when blogging was hardly even a thing yet, I was here. Blogging before blogging meant anything to anyone. You can look in the archives for my past writings, but it was much more like a journal in the past. When we started fundraising, I messed around with the idea of launching something new for this new phase of our journey but actually hated that idea. I am a sum of all of my life and so much of it is here already. So I'm keeping it here. At least for now.
My main focus these days is blogging about our newest journey into the bizarre and wonderful world of gestational surrogacy. Posts dated 2013 and forward will trend heavily toward that journey. I don't promise everything I write will be about though. There might be other things that sneak in occasionally.
Please come along our journey with us. As the saying goes, "The more, the merrier!"
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