Warning: This post contains unadulterated motherly pride and joy.
I recently took a passion test - an exercise in unveiling what your top five passions are in life, with the ultimate aim being to give full attention to those passions and live a fulfilled and successful life. I really thought making art was going to be #1, but to my surprise it turns out that my children, now adults at 20 and 22, are still at the top of my list. [Making art, per se, didn't even make the top five, except that it is very much a part of my numbers 2 and 4: Feeling joy and gratitude everyday, and Living my dream.]
So here is where I launch into proud mama mode. I want everybody to read my daughter's blog, Emily Moon. This week's post is a great place to start. It may not be to everyone's taste, but hopefully you will see why I have such a good reason to feel proud.
Emily is a creative tour de force, always has been. She did grow up in a household where studio time was the norm - perhaps she even noticed from an early age that creative outlets were a dire necessity for her parents. And so I have a photo of two year old Emily, pencil in hand, leaning over her sketch pad. Her father and I did Saturday Market for years, our little ones in tow. At four years of age Emi decided she wanted to write books to sell at Market, so she began to write. In earnest.
By the third grade she was writing ten page stories for her homework assignments. I fretted over this, knowing that she'd have to take the state writing assessment, in which she would be allotted only three hours. She needed to learn how to write a shorter story! By the time she was a teenager, Emily could sit at the keyboard for eight hours at a time working on her young adult fiction novels. I did a similar stint as a young teen, writing up (long hand) alter-egos who were bold and assertive and had great adventures. But my work was schlock. Emily's was rich in character development, setting and plot, and lots of snappy dialog. Her writing was full-bodied.
In high school and college she continued to write excellent essays and speeches for school, but her personal writing took a backseat to the development of her visual arts skills. It is only now, after college graduation, that she has decided to give herself the pleasure of writing again. And lucky me, I get the pleasure of reading it again.
Feeling joy and gratitude,
lulu
I recently took a passion test - an exercise in unveiling what your top five passions are in life, with the ultimate aim being to give full attention to those passions and live a fulfilled and successful life. I really thought making art was going to be #1, but to my surprise it turns out that my children, now adults at 20 and 22, are still at the top of my list. [Making art, per se, didn't even make the top five, except that it is very much a part of my numbers 2 and 4: Feeling joy and gratitude everyday, and Living my dream.]
So here is where I launch into proud mama mode. I want everybody to read my daughter's blog, Emily Moon. This week's post is a great place to start. It may not be to everyone's taste, but hopefully you will see why I have such a good reason to feel proud.
Emily is a creative tour de force, always has been. She did grow up in a household where studio time was the norm - perhaps she even noticed from an early age that creative outlets were a dire necessity for her parents. And so I have a photo of two year old Emily, pencil in hand, leaning over her sketch pad. Her father and I did Saturday Market for years, our little ones in tow. At four years of age Emi decided she wanted to write books to sell at Market, so she began to write. In earnest.
By the third grade she was writing ten page stories for her homework assignments. I fretted over this, knowing that she'd have to take the state writing assessment, in which she would be allotted only three hours. She needed to learn how to write a shorter story! By the time she was a teenager, Emily could sit at the keyboard for eight hours at a time working on her young adult fiction novels. I did a similar stint as a young teen, writing up (long hand) alter-egos who were bold and assertive and had great adventures. But my work was schlock. Emily's was rich in character development, setting and plot, and lots of snappy dialog. Her writing was full-bodied.
In high school and college she continued to write excellent essays and speeches for school, but her personal writing took a backseat to the development of her visual arts skills. It is only now, after college graduation, that she has decided to give herself the pleasure of writing again. And lucky me, I get the pleasure of reading it again.
Feeling joy and gratitude,
lulu