Today my package from B&N arrived. And even though I placed the order and knew it would arrive any day now, I was still excited.
I love getting mail. I have since I was a child.
My father served in the military, so I spent parts of my childhood in Hawaii and California. My one and only grandmother, a women with an imaginative artistic soul, lived in NY. I wanted to be just like her. I wanted to paint and draw like her. I wanted to eat a soft boiled egg out of the shell like her. I wanted to wear a man's pocket watch on a ribbon around my neck like her. And Chanel #5. And red high top shoes....
So nothing compared to the cards she sent regularly.
This was well before instant messaging and emails. Each card was part of a truly special connection between us. On the envelopes and in the cards she drew little pictures; sometimes flowers, sometimes pictures of my sister and I. When I close my eyes I can picture her thin feminine handwriting.
I have a restless creative spirit that I can never seem to channel. She embraced hers. She woke at sunrise to paint the view outside her window. She kept a library of art books. She wrote and illustrated an as-yet-unpublished young adult novel.
And she nurtured my interests. I'll never forget my child size art kit that contained watercolor paints and a set of pastels.
Today's package represents the starting point for my creative goals in 2010.
The 2010 Children's Writers and Illustrator's Marketplace is here.
Now to nurture my artist within.
