Pivot… The Middle Years

Pivot!!!

That seems to have been the battle cry of 2020. I had previously heard the terminology being used mostly by my corporate friends. It never occurred to me that I would ever be in the position to do that. Pivot.  Yet here I am. 2 years after my unexpected and sudden retirement reinventing my entire life. I went from international flight attendant and purser extraordinaire, at least in my mind, to writer and publisher of children's books and media.

One would think that is a huge pivot. Extreme maybe but in all honesty I think it was more of an inevitability. I have always been a creative. I have been keeping a journal of thoughts and ideas since the tenth grade. I have published a poem and some artwork in the past. I sold a few of my designs and I adore children. The Littles and I have a connection. A camaraderie if you will. I like to think of this new beginning as a part of my entire journey. A journey that is far from over if I have anything to say about it.

I discovered my creative side fairly early on. It was in the second grade when I discovered my muse. My Uncle Fred, an extremely good artist with a natural talent and a gift for working in various mediums, had left one of those artist test that were popular in the 50s and 60s, lying around. The ones where you finish the drawing and mail it in to see if they would accept you to their art program for a small fee, IF you showed any talent. He had torn the card from a periodical with the intent of filling it out for himself I’m sure. I found it when I was “exploring” in my grandmother’s house.  I finished the drawing and mailed it to the address on the post card after begging my grandmother for a stamp. Several weeks later I received a letter that I had been accepted and for a small fee I could start taking the mail in courses. I was ecstatic! Mom not so much. I was only 7 and the fees were outrageous in her mind. Besides they were for much older students, not 7 year olds. Instead my uncle brought home some blank sheets of paper from his job for me. He was always bringing home scraps to create with them. He would make incredible lighted wreaths for Christmas from abandoned computer punch cards. Mom was a gifted creator too. I’ll be talking about that in a later post! With my blank paper and what ever I could find to draw with, I began to sketch. I would copy pictures of whatever I could find to draw. I wasn’t awful. My first pleasure was still reading though. I would devour a book sometimes in just one day. I was reading far beyond my grade level. I was reading the newspaper at 5. Reading my mom”s horoscope for while she was getting ready for her job at the bank. In the 6th grade I had read through every single book level and book in the reading corner before we were halfway through the school year. I was becoming bored with school and was looking for creative outlets. I was driving my teacher, Ms Stein, towards insanity’s gates at break neck speed. That same year I had found a pack of brightly colored markers and had all the students in my class at Shady Park Elementary sign their names on my brown bellbottom pants. The brightly colored autographed pants were so cool to me. My mother didn't think so and threw them in the trash. These days I could have sold them and made a hefty profit. Unfortunately, I felt that my mother didn’t appreciate my artistic side. We had a tumultuous relationship until I was well into my thirties. She disposed of many things that meant something to me including an entire portfolio of art works that was needed to apply for the school of design at CMU and my first TWA uniform. I was of a different mindset being a child of the 60s than my mom.  My mom was like a black June Cleaver. That’s what I called her. Always perfect. I was not. We butted heads… a lot! I believed in feminine equality and independence. I was, what was called back then, a tomboy. I ran track and played sports. I would get dirty and I ripped the seam of the seat of my pants on a daily basis. Mom used to ask me “do you have razor blades in your a%$???”  A part of her believed a woman needed to marry well to be happy. Perhaps she had heard this propagandized during her early life. It’s ironic that this one goal eluded her. It is also ironic that she broke so many barriers as a black woman in her career. Looking back it must have been an internal struggle for her. We were not the same it seemed to me. I believed that she felt a disappointment in me for not being more like herself. My brother told me recently she just didn't care for girls back then. Perhaps it was that struggle inside of her that wanted to be free but wasn’t really permitted then for a girl, especially a colored girl of that era. I know she wanted to be an attorney. She would have been a great one with her love of words… an talking! She could hold a conversation with a lamppost. There may be something to that feeling of disdain towards me. Maybe she could see that part of me ripping through life the way that she desired. Later in her life she came around to appreciate my audaciousness I believe. Although she would never admit that to me. She loved my daughter, her granddaughter, that is for certain. And I do believe she loved me too. She was proud of both of us. Mothers and daughters are mysterious and quite complicated.

I will tell anyone that art and literature saved my life. I am not being dramatic when I make that statement. It molded me and made me the person that I have become. It’s through the love of reading that I learned to crave learning , adventure, and knowledge. It’s through the love of art that I learned sophistication and class. It’s through the love of travel that I learned independence and self reliance. As I mentioned earlier, it was required that we keep a journal when I was a student at Foxcroft. We turned it in every Friday for review. This is where I began to write for myself about myself. I have kept a journal my entire life from that point until now. Journaling is extremely important in my opinion. It clears the mind. It helps to solve problems and see things clearly. It is also wonderful to go back and look at how you have grown, changed and developed over the years. But… it has been a doubled edge sword as well. It has revealed to me the toxicity of a couple of relationships when the person that you trusted and that supposedly loved you read your private thoughts and then used them against you. If you’re in a loving and trusting relationship or friendship you shouldn’t have to lock away your past or current self. Unconditional love is elusive.

I had a rough start in life. I suspect most children that are my age now did too. It was a turbulent time in history to be born. If it were not for my creative self I believe I would have, or could have been drawn into a terrible fate. So many of my contemporaries weren’t able to make it to the other side. There was rampant drug addiction, teen pregnancy, alcoholism, criminal activity and despair. Despair happens when all of your hope is taken away. Through my adventures and tenacity I never lost hope. I’m not sure if I was lucky or blessed or just a wide-eyed opportunist that grabbed everything that was offered to me. What I do know is that I have had struggles like everyone else. The difference perhaps is that even if I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, I knew it was there. I believed it was there. I still do believe that. Obstacles still present themselves. I don't see them as obstructions though. I see them as a problem that needs solving. Some problems are more complicated than others. Sometimes it takes a huge leap of faith into uncharted depths. Sometimes you have to find another way around them. Sometimes you just have to…pivot.