May 16, 2008 – Of all the messages I get, I think the ones that stand out the most are from people who say they want to change their lives, or more frequently, express some creative parts of themselves, but feel it is beyond them to be a writer, a farmer,  an artist, or a photographer. They are frightened at the thought, and think these dreams, stirrings, are the province of the mystically gifted, the talented others, the people inside the tent.
  The most recent of these messages was from Amy, a lawyer contemplating changing her life. Amy went through a work crisis in one of those all too familiar corporate shake-ups, and  is taking classes at an art school, and she said her loved ones were worried about her creative stirrings, and  thought they  seemed like goofing off.
  They want her to get back on track, back to work.
  Amy said she had a secret longing in her heart,  and walking into a bookstore brought on waves of despair. And then she said another thing that so many people say: “There are so many, many writers, hundreds and thousands of good writers, what on earth could I be thinking to dare think I could be one?”
  So this is a poignant message. Here is an intelligent, accomplished person who wonders how she could possibly dare to do something she is longing to do.
    I told Amy that one person’s mid-life crisis can be another’s awakening, or rebirth.
   Generally, I have learned, few people tell you that you should try and do something you really want to do. So you have to decide yourself whether it is worth doing, and that is profoundly frightening.
  I don’t really know how our culture came to see following your bliss as a dangerous, even impossible thing. Maybe because it is frightening to others when we change, as well as us.
  As always, I can only speak for myself, and do not feel I know what others ought to do. I see writing as a choice, not a magical gift. It is work, a job. It is hard to do, as is being a lawyer, doctor, mechanic, police officer, or Army Ranger. Writing is, I suspect, less difficult than most of those things.
  It takes work, determination, luck and encouragement, as does being a doctor, perhaps one of the most difficult things in the world to do, and do well these days. It is hard to get to do any thing that is worth doing. People do it.
  If Amy chooses to be a writer, or an artist, there is no sure success, if she defines success as making a lot of money, or being a best-seller, or having publishers or art gallery owners like you. She might well get the poverty, rejection and humiliation she fears.
   Many people, I have found, have good stories in them, a painting that wants to come out, an inner presence struggling to live. Not for me or anyone to say what their talent might be. Maybe they can’t make a living at it, maybe they can, maybe they can do it some of the time, which is better than nothing.
  If you define success as  following the yearnings of your heart, permitting the golden seeds of imagination and longing to grow, and living your life as you define it, then success is something else.
  I could not have imagined a year ago that I would ever go out into a meadow and lie on my face for three hours, rolling in dirt and smothered in gnats, flies and ticks to take macro photos of dandelions so that they could fit with verses of Mary Oliver poems. A year ago, I am not sure I had ever taken a picture in my life.
    Why would anyone care? Does the earth need another photo of a dandelion? How could I dare to do that?
   How could I not?
   I love encouragement, appreciate praise, dislike criticism and ridicule, and open myself up to it all the time – you do that knowingly when you write a blog like this and write memoirs – but when all is said and done, it seems to me to come down to self-respect, not what others think, but what I think.
    I dare. I care. And when I sat down late that night to look at the photos I take, I had no idea whether they were good or not, but I was glad that I had taken them.
  Easy for me to say, perhaps, having written seventeen books.
  But it is not easy for me, it has never been easy for me, or for any other writer who lives his or her life. I am nothing but blessed, but that is not the same as easy. Nor is it easy for any artist, or any person who chooses to live the life their heart yearns for.
  A writer’s life, like the perfect life, is not about ease or bliss or mystical talent. It is, like any life, about work and trouble, pain and loss, victories and defeats.  Every day, I know sorrow and I know joy, and that is not a difficult life, but life.
  I don’t know Amy, and cannot say what the best choice is for her. Reading her message, I found myself thinking of her, whispering to her, and what I was whispering was this:
  follow  your heart,  make the choice to live your life. Put your lips to the world and shout that you are entitled to this, you are deserving of this, that the thing inside of you is important and deserves to live. It is not for others to tell you what to do, or even like the choice you make. That is for you alone. You may get to live your life, become a citizen of your true community.
   When all is said and done, you are guaranteed nothing but this, and it may be your only reward: you will not have to regret not having tried.