It’s Never Too Late
Everyone knows the story of Grandma Moses, the American folk artist who didn’t begin painting until she was 78. When arthritis took away her ability to embroider, her sister suggested she give painting a try. She tried it and loved it and the rest is history.
History is filled with stories of late bloomers. Ronald Reagan wasn’t elected to public office until he was 55. Laura Ingalls Wilder didn’t publish her first novel in the Little House series until she was in her sixties. Clint Eastwood, the oldest person to win the Academy Award for Best Director, didn’t direct a film until he was in his forties.
I felt like a late bloomer when I decided that I did not want to pursue what I went to college for. I have a masters in education with a speciality in reading. But I did not want to teach. I wanted to write.
I was 30 and had no training in writing. I had no idea where to begin. All I had was the desire.
There were a lot of stops and starts, more rejection letters than cheery notes that said, “We love your work!” I wallpapered my small home office with rejection letters.
My husband insisted I stay the course. “Keep trying,” he said. “You can’t get worse at something you do over and over.” He was right. I worked long. I worked hard. And I did not give up. Eventually I got published.
Fast forward 40 years. That’s how long I’ve been writing columns and books and stories. It’s still full of stops and starts, days when the words won’t come, days when they come and they’re all wrong. In my office, I have unpublished books and stories in one file cabinet, and published books and stories in another.
Writing is never a slam dunk.
At 60, I took up singing, in public, at a mic, and this time I was a late bloomer for real! My daughter signed me up for a cabaret class because she’d been listening to me sing around the house her whole life. I went with a friend and loved it.
When the class ended I took some private lessons. I learned how to breathe (Who knew I didn’t know how to breathe?); how to phrase a song; how to hold onto the vowels and let go of the consonants; and how to get out of my own way and simply tell a story.
I wrote a show. “Side by Side - a Mother/Daughter Love Story” I wrote it for my mother. She was a singer. In the show I tell her story and sing the songs she sang or would have sung. Sometimes when I’m performing, I feel my mother next to me. That’s when I’m the most glad I took up singing. But most times, I’m just up there on a stage, trying to remember words and notes, trying to stand still, trying to get out of my own way and let the song tell its story.
It’s never too late. That’s what I tell myself every day.
A friend asks me to go to yoga with her. She says yoga will be good for me. She says yoga relieves stress.
I’m stressed just thinking about yoga.
Before I head out the door to meet her, I send her a link to something I just read: https://www.higherperspectives.com/singing-daily-2603018816.html?xrs=RebelMouse_fb&ts=1536388306 “New research says singing daily reduces stress, clears sinuses, and helps you live longer.” “It gives you pretty much the same effect as yoga breathing,” the leader of the study claims.
