Monday Letter Lore: "I Dont Know What Art is All About"

Georgia O'Keeffe, 1918

There are careers, and there are passions, and then there are the friends who help you sort them out.

I've been told I'm very good, and I'm fairly compensated, in my career in non-profit member communications. And while I do like my job, I can't say I love it.

What I love is handwriting letters to friends and family and endeavoring to inspire others to do the same. These activities are my passion, but I often do wonder, am I really any good at them? (The inspiration part, I guess. I'm willing to believe that I'm pretty good at writing letters.)

I felt a little bit better about my self-doubt when I read the subject of this week's Monday Letter Lore, a letter from legendary artist Georgia O'Keeffe to a friend in New York. (This letter is yet another from the simply extraordinary America 1900-1999: Letters of the Century.)

At the time O'Keeffe had spent several week in her beloved New Mexico, the new home that inspired some of her most amazing work. In the letter she recounts reading an art book--one that features a profile of her and is the lone piece of printed material she has brought along:

July 31, 1931

I dont know what it is all about. I look through the rest of the book and decide that frankly--I dont know what Art is all about--

Georgia O'Keeffe didn't think she knew what art was all about. Georgia O'Keeffe--one of America's most important modern artists and a celebrated cultural icon--doubted she knew what ART was all about.

Reading her words, I realized two things:

1. I ought not let my worries about whether I excel at my passion keep me from pursuing it.


2. How precious is the person or people in our lives to whom we can admit anything, even the seemingly self-incriminating.

 For me, one of those precious people is a bestselling author friend. As I have struggled to establish my own writing career, she has encouraged me, serendipitously put me in touch with people who could help, and most of all served as a role model for never losing sight of your true passion, no matter what other accomplishments you accumulate along the way. (She was a successful interior designer before becoming a multimillion-dollar selling author.)

My friend once said to me that I have this dream--to write with the intent of helping save the art of handwritten correspondence--because it is attainable. I'm not dreaming about being an astronaut, or a supermodel, or a Supreme Court justice. I'm dreaming about something that is within my abilities to achieve. I took the opportunity of a letter to thank her for those special words, which have pulled me through many of my own "I don't know Art is all about" moments:

You're right--I had the dream because I'm supposed to fulfill it. So, so amazing ... thanks for being a reason to believe that dreams can come true, that dignity, class, dedication and faith will prevail and the universe is listening more closely and actively than we know.

When I've pondered my life's work--What it should be? How can I do it? Do I really know how to do it?--there have been seemingly endless resources to help me sort it out. Life coaches, websites, seminars and books have all helped, but nothing can replace the words of a friend who knows me and knows what I'm trying to achieve, and has spotted at the end of the tunnel the light I thought had long since been extinguished.

I'm reminded, too, that inasmuch as my friend was my cheerleader, I may wittingly, or unwittingly, play the same role for someone else in my life. It is a privilege and an honor I can't take lightly.

Write on.

DID YOU KNOW LETTERS & JOURNALS MAGAZINE HAS A FACEBOOK PAGE? If you're like me and can't get enough of lovely stationery and journals, you'll want to become a fan and watch for the regular, lust-inducing giveaways offered along with news and curiosities from the world of handwritten correspondence.

Lucky

I always heard as a child -- and slowly have come to believe as an adult -- that everything happens for a reason.

It would seem the Letter Jar and the responses it  attracts are no exception.

Recently I wrote to my friend M, a graphic designer whom I met while working at a community college in New Mexico. I told her how much I admire not only her creativity but also her openness, inquisitiveness and energy.

You approach life with the attitude that there is always something new to learn, always a way to expand your horizons and your understanding. That kind of living is unique and refreshing and something I aspire to ... you're not afraid to test your own limits and I think that's very, very awesome.

I should have known that news of M's latest exploits -- which she recounted briefly in an e-mail after receiving my letter -- would serve as a well-timed, much needed boost when I was weary in the pursuit of my own passions. Turns out M recently quit her job as a designer and is one month away from a degree in massage therapy, an achievement she'll follow by moving to Idaho to train as a Kung Fu instructor. Ultimately she'll move back to New Mexico to open a studio where she'll offer -- you guessed it -- massage therapy and Kung Fu lessons.

I decided sometime at the beginning of last year that I needed to change something in my life. I was feeling very unhappy at [the community college] and it was more because I needed a change ... I'll do massage therapy during the day and Kung Fu at night. Sounds dreamy! Doesn't it?

Were it anyone else, the whole dream might seem odd. But I know M and I know that one day I'll be visiting her highly successful studio -- when she sets her mind to something, she doesn't let up. I call her unique brand of ambition "ferocity and focus."

And what do I call the fact that her e-mail showed up on a day when my own confidence was sagging, when I needed inspiration to stay true to my own odd -- but just as beloved -- dream of the Letter Jar project and accompanying book?

I call that luck. Or, as my Jewish friend A would say, "bashert." I wrote about my good fortune of sharing dinner with him when he traveled to Chicago from Albuquerque for a conference last year, just days after he received my letter. That night we marveled at how I just happened to write when I did -- we hadn't talked in several years. "It's Bashert, he said. "It's a Yiddish word and there's no exact translation in English, though fate comes close."

Truly. Call it bashert, or fate, or even just plain old luck -- responses to The Letter Jar seem to consistently bring me the right words at the right time. I can only hope that's true for some of the letters I send, as well.

MAIL FROM A FELLOW MAILER: I guess I ought to have expected that respondents to a blog about letter-writing would be an eclectic bunch. One such reader is Sheryl at changeofaddress.org, a website whose name kind of says it all. Sheryl e-mailed to let me know about her new blog post, "10 Reasons Why Mail Can Be Late." Wondering why that letter bound for Phoenix took a detour through Fayetteville? Read on. And thanks Sheryl for visiting The Letter Jar!

Risk, Reward and Recognition

Today I received in the mail a letter from T, a friend to whom I wrote a few weeks ago. I had told T how she inspired me by rising above her divorce--an ugly split precipitated by her husband's cheating--with such dignity and grace. T has moved on with a new husband and two beautiful boys who, as I told her, are so lucky to have her as their mama:

... One thing I've realized as I've written these letters ... is that there are so many lessons I've learned from my friends ... And one of those lessons ... is that life doesn't always turn out like you planned, and might just be the very best thing. I hope to share with my son the idea that sometimes you just have to hang in and trust you're on your way to somewhere good, even if the road seems to be rolling straight through hell ...

T responded with a lovely note of her own, relating how she has shared with others my story of leaving my first marriage in order to find someone who wanted children, and how that decision has worked out in the best way possible:

... I really admired you for taking a risk for something you knew was important to you. Not everyone would be willing to do that and would instead be unhappy on some level and most likely wonder "what if" ... there's another cliche I've come to believe in life-- nothing worthwhile comes easily ...

Her words at the end of a frustrating week during which I struggled, away from my infant son for hours a day at a job I don't really enjoy, and reinvigorated my pursuit of new dreams for myself and my family. I also got a sense of what I might be giving other people with my words. T and other recipients have acknowledged my letters, saying they came "at the best time" and "made me cry--a good cry!"

It's true: we want to be validated for what we've accomplished. And in writing my letters of praise--to a 14-year-old girl trying out for the football team, a recovering alcoholic in his 20th-plus year of sobriety, my brother accelerating in his career--I am myself informed, impelled and inspired.

A Buddhist proverb says that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. If we believe that we are actually surrounded by our teachers, then we as students have become ready--the lessons are all that remain to be discovered. What, and from whom, are you learning today?