On air & unpredictability

the gentle nudges we barely notice

How did you end up where you are right now?

Photo by Sander Weeteling

If yours was a direct path, predictable and steady, I’d love to know. Most people I speak with are baffled by how they end up where they do.

I don't even know how or why I am sitting here at my computer writing to you and hoping, honestly, that we can connect deeply enough that you will somehow feel heard and seen through my personal musings.

I don’t know how I ended up teaching writing and leadership. I don’t know why I started sharing mindfulness practices or combining them with creative output, and I really don’t know why I’m still alive and healthy when so many people from my past are not.

When I think about the unlikelihood of it all, I am all the more terrified and thrilled to see where I'm headed.

When I was the average age of many of my students, I had a general education equivalent (GED) after having dropped out of high school. I did not know basic grammar. I was working one of many jobs that paid me minimum wage and taking one class a quarter at a community college.

I had no clue where I would end up. I couldn’t picture it, no matter how creative I might have been. I didn’t know how to verbally communicate what I wanted or needed, even when necessary.

All I could see was the day ahead. The grind. The work. The questions about which path might lead me anywhere else.

One could say I let the wind carry me. And it did. It nudged me toward amazing instructors (shoutout to Dr. Look and Dr. Lakanen). It redirected my gaze from longing to practicality and back again. It gave me just enough fear to take better care of my body. And I trusted it.

If you had walked up to me, a stranger, and given me a ticket to anywhere when I was in my early twenties, I’d have been on the first thing smoking to whatever mysterious lands it promised. All I wanted was that ticket. Permission. Resources. And just as it seemed the world had beaten me down in years prior, the winds shifted.

I wanted to talk about the elements and creativity some more when I sat down to write this blog. I wanted to talk about the value of sitting with thought and watching it swirl, of allowing any fragmentation so as to find a more dynamic puzzle.

But instead, here we are. I suppose I let the wind take this post. It whispers what often seems random but adds up collectively, like fractals, to create patterns more beautiful than we can imagine.

Even those of us who pride ourselves on being creatives.

Sometimes we just need to keep turning corners before we can find the right door. Whether we trust it or not, the wind is almost always at our backs.

Wishing you a little ease of thought and energy as you create this week. I’ll post again after ThurberCon, so it will be a little over a week. If you’d like to join, it’s a hybrid event and quite dynamic. I’ll be hosting events on publishing, submitting work to journals, and AI.

Finally, I wanted to share a breath practice in honor of air (my yoga teacher used to say this one gets you high on your own supply). It’s one I love before events. (Originally recorded for Insight.)

In community,

Jen