An Answer to My Destiny....

As a kid, you look up to people - not just because you're short (although I grew into my adult height by the time I was in the 8th grade) - but because you dream - sometimes more easily as a kid than as an adult. But I would have to say, that dreaming is something that I have done more in the last few months than I may ever have done as a kid...

I had always wanted to be creative....visually creative. I remember as a young teenager (probably a little younger than that), I wanted to take pictures. I had a camera as a young person...albeit it was film (no kids, there was no such thing as digital) - and it was a hand me down from dad - a Nikon - when he got his Minolta. I had no idea what anything was on that camera...I knew how to load the film, manually focus and press the shutter button. I didn't know that if it was too dark that the camera would know how long to keep it's shutter open - I thought that the long pause before the click meant that I broke it.
I didn't keep the camera - I can't remember what happened to it. And dad still has his Minolta film camera (it's somewhere in the deep recesses of the mountains of stuff my parents have managed to accumulate over the years) - he's graduated to point and shoot digitals, while I took my love to a Canon Digital Rebel xTi (Canon has since come out with the xSi - but I'm not interested in changing camera bodies just yet - I'll hold out for a couple more years to get something in the Eos family - I have a 10th anniversary coming in about 2 years...)

I was reading Karen Russell's blog (you can get there by clicking here). In her most recent entry, she talks about the Christmas gift, given by her husband, Josh - an old piano...and how she has always felt that becoming a pianist was part of her destiny. I left a comment on her blog telling her that I would answer her entry on my blog:

I always wanted to be a photographer. I have always wanted to capture moments to remember. BUT I was made to be a pianist. I took almost 8 years of classical piano and music theory. My parents made me when I was 7 years old. I hated it, at first, and after I had taken 18 months or so of lessons and then begged my parents to let me quit, my first piano teacher passed away. I remember going to her wake and seeing how many students she had taught and that was my wake up call - I begged my dad to find me another teacher and he did. And I studied with that teacher for 5 years. I'm not one to brag about me - but I played me some good piano...I was one of the pianists for the Glee Club at school (my good buddy, Tobi, was the other one - she's better than me) and I played keyboard for the school musicals (except for the one in Senior year -when I played Liesl in "The Sound of Music"). Chopin was a favorite - but I'm down with Bach, Handel and some other dead guys....

I also found my voice while I was learning to play...sang in school musicals, chorus groups, glee club and church choir. I did all these things in high school and once I got to college, I left it all behind me...

I still wanted to be a visual artist...and didn't find out that I could be one until I started scrapbooking - which made so much sense to me because it brought together 2 things that I wanted to be - a visual artist and a photographer.

Friends that don't scrap or take pictures ask me all the time - where do I find the time to do it all? My answer to that is I don't - I just do it anyway...

I was lucky (blessed to be a chosen one really!!!) to land a coveted spot in Karen Russell's online photography class - The Photographer's Workshop - we start the week of Jan. 19 - coincidentally, the first week of the spring semester at school (which I need to register for - rather, beg my way into a class that is already full...keeping my fingers crossed). And while I am sure that it will take me at least the same 8 years (realistically, more) it took me to be a decent pianist, I am determined to become that photographer I wanted to be as a kid.
I don't play anymore, really - but I can do it again, if I sat at the piano for a couple of hours a week - nothing compared to the amount of practice I did when I was younger...I started with 30 minutes a day in the very beginning but by the time I was a senior in high school, I was practicing an hour before school started, singing and playing 3-4 hours after school and another hour or so after I got home, with a 1 hour lesson, once - sometimes- twice a week...

Karen, take piano lessons - it's hard but it's wonderful...that's how I feel today about photography...and life in general. The 19th can't come fast enough for me....

If I've learned nothing else in this life - it's that it is never too late for anything...

P.S. Good job on the gift, Josh!!!