Making it up as I go.

Beverly and Willy both tagged me with the Six Word Memoir meme a few days ago (Within hours of each other! It's a conspiracy, I tell you!) and I've been struggling to find the right hexalingual combination since then. I can THINK in six word chunks... I just can't PICK a definitive phrase. (Apparently I can also make up words like hexalingual, but that's another story entirely.)

I think the original intention was for the memoir to be "birdy" in nature... but since that's only a part of who I am, I elected to make a broader statement. (Hmmm... maybe another memoir candidate could be "Rules? There were rules? Oops. Sorry.")

I have a list that looks like this:

- Always curious about the next adventure. (life in general)
- Rarely plans ahead. Lucks out anyway. (linocut process. Or, now that I think of it, life in general)
- Season is changing. Go find birds. (vernal equinox was this week, right?)
- Pencil, gouge, brush, or binoculars? Yes!
- Did anyone bring the answer key? (another general life thought)
- Can we get there from here? (ditto)
- A pox upon my downstairs neighbors. (see previous post)
- This is too hard. I quit. ("this"= meme responding)

In the end I guess I have to settle for this:

Making it up as I go.

For, oh, most of my adult life, I've been living by the seat of my pants. There have been part-time "day jobs" (usually for non-profits so NOT much of a financial boon), but for the most part I haven't been able to see ahead more than three or four months at a time in terms of work security. It's the nature of self-employment, of wandering into art and nature as the topics for that self-employment, and of being loathe to ignore any single possibility that comes my way.

It's not an easy way to live, but because I've been willing to set aside certainty I've been able to capitalize on opportunity. I have met and worked with amazing scientists, artists, musicians, designers, thinkers, inventors, writers, farmers, ranchers, land stewards of all stripes, curious naturalists and birders and snailers and teachers in many parts of the world. Passionate visionaries, the lot of 'em. And they inspire and inform every single day for me.

Sure... these days I'm "making it up" more deliberately than I did in my 20s and 30s, but I'm still aware that every new day is full of possibility. I just have to pay attention. (Oh , look! That was six words, too!)


And now for the legal disclaimers:

Here are the rules (copied from the original blogger who started this):
1. Write your own six word memoir
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere
4. Tag five more blogs with links
5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

So who's tagged? Susan (who has no time, so give her until July to respond), Beth, Amie, Holly, and Debby.