...But the journey is the goal....
This is a photo of the first sketch I have made for what feels like several years and is of my cat Wilhelmenia AKA Willsy or (the royal) Wills... I guess I drew her because for the first time in ages I actually took some time out from worrying about the rest of the world and its injustices to just do something that I really enjoy and that is to sketch..
Its a very luxurious position to be in really, to be able to sketch my cat. A very middle class indulgence. Drawing the things around me is what first took me to art school and a degree in painting...Yes, that's right, I never studied photography I was always going to be a painter but then I picked up a camera in my final semester and immediately had one of those 'Eureka' moments...I knew then that a camera and my life path where always going to be intertwined...
Lately though, it has been a struggle to make a living out of my chosen career and I wonder how many others out there feel that somewhere that they made a decision that really hasn't benefited them... I mean I look at some of my friends and where they are and how they seem to be happy and stable and I think, wow, my life has been interesting so far and its a perfect day but I only have $1.14 in the bank and I am not sure where my next job is coming from...
I often wonder if I made a conscious choice about being where I am right now or whether it was a matter of fate?
I have a friend, Lisa Nicholas, that has just opened the Sarasvati Yoga School in Martigny in Suisse. Affectionately we call one another the 'other Lisa' as we spent a number of our earlier years in the mountains causing trouble and then blaming the 'other Lisa'... It was fun and a bit of mischief but we have always been bonded in a way because of that. The 'other Lisa' has been based in the mountains ever since those early days, while I have lived in cities all over the world...Finally I am back to where I begun now...in the mountains... and I am older, wiser and more centered than ever before. Even though I only have a $1.14. to my name...
The 'other Lisa' though has always pursued this kind of life, one of spiritual awareness and examining 'well-being'. I know her school will be a great success and she will be able to impart a great deal of the knowledge that she has gained through her yoga practice and I also know that her path to this point has not always been easy, but when I remember who she was when we were in our early twenties, it seems kind of inevitable that she should be be a Yoga Master...
So while I know how privileged I have been to have had the kind of life I have had I wonder would it have been different if I had chosen to stay in the mountains and not chase a dream that was really based on a whim...
And if I had, would all I have ever done is draw cats...contented and happy though they seem...