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Make Your Life a Work of Art
Don’t make art your life
I dropped my 16-year-old off at the muster point for their week-long stint as a counselor for Outdoor School. They would be in charge of guiding a group of sixth graders through the week.
It would be dishonest to say that I wasn’t nervous. I had some worries about the casual way the non-profit in charge of everything was organized and disbursed information. But my child was passionate about the venture and eager to test themselves.
Later that evening, they called me in the midst of a mental health crisis asking me to pick them up.
I left immediately.
I left, even though I was in the middle of an illustration project. I left even though it meant missing deadlines. I left immediately because my children, not my work, are my life.
The camp was about two hours away, but I had to drive over the Oregon Coastal Range along a windy and, at times, quite narrow highway. It was raining the way it does along the Oregon coast all fall and winter, sometimes in big driving drops but mostly in a thick wall of drizzle only distinguishable from fog because it’s slightly less opaque. On this night there was fog too.
