Life-long Dream Fulfilled!

I received some fantastic news this week. Actually, it’s news that fulfills a lifelong dream. My work is being published in a quarterly magazine: Life Images, a publication of Stampington Press.

I submitted the above photo of the Red-eyed Leaf Frog I took in Costa Rica. I also submitted an essay about the picture and what role it played in beginning my greeting card business. I am excited beyond measure.

I first submitted a proposal to a magazine in 2001 and this is the first time I’ve ever been accepted – eight years later. I recommend determination, continual reading and study to always improve one’s abilities, and then also, to actually submit! Since eight years have passed between now and my first submission, one may think I’ve spent these years walking from my mailbox, disgruntled with yet another rejection. However, this is only the second time I’ve ever submitted. I hit a long, dry spell – huh?

I guess it could have happened sooner, but it didn’t! So I’m thrilled today instead of sometime long past – and that’s all right! Work within your own pace, not evaluating your worth with what you accomplish or don’t.

Someone once asked me to tell them about myself. I started with what I did for a living only to be interrupted by the inquirer. He said, “I didn’t ask what you do, I asked who you were.” I was momentarily stumped.

I’ve thought of this encounter often when I begin to feel frantic to accomplish something – anything – as long as I’m doing, I’m all right. I’m okay about myself and the space I inhabit if I’m contributing – I just have to keep going, going, going, going - until I don’t or can’t.

I also have queried my body if some of my illnesses, especially the cancer of 2007 have resulted because of my inability to process change and turmoil, peacefully. We’ve all read the reports of stress and its effects on the immune system. My body did not communicate its secrets, but my mind said, “Of course, you Dolt! You think YOU are exempt from stress-related illness? Think again and get a grip on yourself!”

I’ve finally realized I’m probably not going to discover a cure for cancer (you notice, I still said probably, old habits die hard) or write a great American novel, but everyday when I get up, I set my intention for the day. Lately, it’s just been a stated desire to let me be the best I can be on this day of my rising and to experience joy in the doing.

It’s a new peaceful way to live.

Ironically, it seems now that I’ve taken the pressure off myself, I’m accomplishing more that I did when I was a frantic pursuer of tasks. I show up, am willing, listen to my body and heart for direction and respond accordingly.

Look for my first published piece in April’s edition of Life Images. It can be found in the magazine section of Barnes and Noble Bookstore. (I do autographs! HA!)

Pleasant dreaming!

Let's Start at the Beginning...

A friend once told me, “It doesn’t matter where you are in life. What matters is how far you’ve had to come to get to where you are.”

I’ve navigated roadblocks, avalanches and heartaches, as well as mitigated scorn and judgment to arrive today. As far as the plains of Kansas are from the mountains of Kathmandu, is metaphorically, how far I’ve had to come. I’ve allowed emotions to derail me and withered when the winds of cynicism blew, but, I survived it all and today breathe this sigh of gratitude, and to share these words and color with you.

I am an artist, writer, photographer, singer and inventor, and we artisitic types don't always find the understanding we seek. Growing-up, my mother’s favorite term for me was, “odd.” Thus the long journey seeking my heart's delight began under the scrutiny of my elders. The roadblocks of which I spoke, were mostly self-imposed. When making decisions, I consulted my intellect and ignored my heart’s pleadings.

The family into which I was born was blessed with singers and artists, but none of them believed in themselves or in their abilities. Consequently, my course of rebuff was generationally set. I was told to be serious and to learn skills, not to play with paints or to sing songs or to waste time writing poems. I was six when I wrote my first poem about a bug named Mary, and then composed a melody I devised from the twenty-two working keys on the piano that sat on our back porch and a lifelong passion was born.

Later, when I really began to sing in earnest, was given solos at school and began voice lessons, my dad would interrupt my practicing by asking if there was a sick cow in the room - then he'd smile and acknowledge that it was just me - singing. He intended no malice and was trying to be clever, but it’s taken years to get over the embarrassment that results from being judged and found lacking. Wanting to create, to perform and to bring light and then – the shame of “showing off” by sharing, either my creations or songs dimmed the ardor and enthusiasm.

We are such complex creatures.

My purpose in starting,” Words and Color with Tawnee,” is to urge each person to embrace the joy that comes from turning off your internal critic and engaging your playful, willing self to experience more exuberance - to LIVE LARGE! There is a saying that the artist Mary Englebreit illustrated, that reads: “Life’s too mysterious, don’t take it serious.”

Byron Katie in her book, Loving What Is, writes succinctly about worry and taking in judgment: "Whether worry occurs about these things or not, they are today, as they are. You may sit with a frown on your face all day and wring your hands, but you have not changed the facts of the situation, you’ve only robbed yourself of joy and vitality. You cannot resist, “what is,” and be happy."

If you paint, or take photographs, or write, or participate in any of a gazillion other outlets of creativity and you experience joy - rejoice! The situation that causes you concern, will be as it is; your vacating your post of worry affects it not a whit. However, you’re regenerated and enriched – and so are those with whom you share your works. You have no need to feel guilty by finding beauty and by experiencing joy, even if others can't or won't

Anais Nin tells us that, “As we spend our days, so we spend our lives.”

 I resigned my position as a vice president with one of the largest financial institutions in the world to be just where I am in this journey, so – gulp – I guess I’m committed. I have lots to share about where I’ve been and where I hope to go, but for now, I’m going to just share a poem with you I wrote about how I arrived here.

Rebirth
Tawnee Isbell

I'd swoop high in the swings at my grade school
and watch clouds as they swirled into shapes
I’d see stars and dragons and lions
And melons and cougars and apes

I'd draw and paint and laugh out loud
And crow how much fun it all was
My mother said, “Quit all that foolishness.”
I asked why, she said, “Just because.”

She said that someone like me should learn typing
That people like us won’t find dreams
That pain and darkness and heartbreak result
Not acclaim or blinding klieg beams

She implied that I wasn't special
She said there were millions like me
That to believe any different was foolish,
“Be normal,” was my family’s decree

I felt confusion and shae amd heartbreak
While I searched for my place on the Earth
I put down my brush and took up my pad
And filed memos in a small, naked berth

For years I conformed to a standard
For years I tried to fit in
While my spirits drooped and my arches fell
My pen poised in a room full of men

Why do I care if they think I'm crazy?
Why should their opinions matter to me?
It’s my passion that’s choking and smothers
It’s my spirit that begs to be free!

"Come hither to us," purr the mountains
“Come hither to us!” yell the trees
The inspiration, my clouds, swirl waiting
for my soul to paint what it sees!

The high-heels I gave to the Goodwill
Also, the suits, to constrain someone else
The politics, conference calls and meetings
I left with my keys on the shelf

My new paints are vibrant and gooey
They are naughty and fly off the page
While I paint the melons and lions and cougars and apes
I envisioned each day from my cage

Hope resisted that toxic life sentence
While Joy hibernated within
The message, well-meant, was erroneous
To say dreams can’t be, is a sin

Sometimes there is only one person
to say what the World needs to hear
Or to find that new species, or to discover a cure
How missed dreams change the World, isn’t clear.

Out task is to encourage and be willing 
To take risks and be part of the plan
To paint, and to dance and to write and to sing
To be present and be all that we can


If you mustered the courage to do one thing differently and to be more intentionally creative, what would it be?