One important parts of day is my space “in the margins” during my walk to and from home each day. Lately on the walk I’ve been listening to Patrick Dodson‘s podcasts on Identity (you should check them out here!). In these workshop sessions he says that while most of us make decisions about who we are and what we are going to do based on outside pressures, it’s important for each of us to discover what our natural passions and talents are and live from the inside outward. Part of that discovery process includes telling the stories about yourself as a kid: How did you play? What kinds of things did you like to make? What did your parents say you were like? What are some accomplishment you were proud of?

One of the stories that came to mind for me happened when I was in junior high, 14ish years old. We were all asked to create a brochure about the career we wanted to pursue. I had always hated the, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” question and tried to avoid it, but this assignment really was forcing me to commit! I had always been interested in flight. Flight Simulator was my most treasured computer game, and I was fascinated by planes. So I committed. I made a brochure about flight.

What’s funny as I’ve looked back is that the most important part of that assignment wasn’t the content of the brochure or the decision to become a pilot (which I apparently didn’t stick with anyway). What I discovered is that I actually enjoyed the designing and making of the brochure more the career choice! As I’ve looked back, this and other stories have pointed out how I enjoy designing, organizing, creating visual materials.

I actually was looking for the brochure creation in question the other day (in that big bin of my “works of art” kept in my parents’ basement, which I’m starting to appreciate more). And while I couldn’t the brochure, I did find many other art projects, drawings, books that made me think, “I made all this stuff when I was eight, why is it so hard to do this now?”

One project made us laugh particularly hard, and I had to share it. It’s a short story, written about my first dog, which I think would fall in the genre of “tragedy”. Here it is.