No stopping

Making resolutions is about introspection and hope. I look at my life. I see behaviors that are not helpful and resolve to change them. If I don’t have this hope as I live each new day, why not just lie down now, roll over and call it quits?

Every year I treat myself to a Japanese calendar. I’m particularly drawn to its format, narrow and deep with sumi painting and a proverb in calligraphy for each month. Last year when I turned to February I read, “Don’t be afraid of going slow, just be afraid of stopping.” It’s appropriate that this encouragement appeared when the zeal of early January resolutions was beginning to flag.

Aesop gave us a wonderful reminder in The Tortoise and the Hare, “Slow and steady wins the race.” I’m definitely a tortoise in my pace. Decades have passed since I decided at age ten to become an author-illustrator. This year, 2009, I win a dream-come-true with the fall publication of my first picture book as both author and illustrator, The East-West House: Noguchi’s Childhood in Japan (Lee & Low).

I am bursting with many more writing ideas and often eager to run like a hare, but I have responsibilities (earning a living, daily chores, and a family). Life slows me down. There is a popular myth that REAL writers and artists have an all-consuming passionate relationship with their work leaving no room for anything else. Do we want to believe that balance and creative expression are incompatible? I can’t/don’t choose to eliminate aspects of my life that interrupt my creative time. It all means that I must accept a slower pace. This year I resolve to plod on, do what I can, keep my eyes on the goal and continue moving.