North, South, and Drawing with Wendy Mac

On the weekends, I often navigate my bike rides by feel.

If you ask (as Ara often does), I can tell you approximately how long the ride will be. But what path I’ll take from the moment I start to the second I dismount, well, that’s anybody’s guess.

Go left or right? Up or down? North or south? Having the freedom in real time to discover what’s down that street, around that corner, over that hill, is something I look forward to all week.

And the best part is, there are no wrong decisions. Sure, sometimes I have to pedal a little further and othertimes I have to turn around when I realize I’ve merged onto a freeway (a story for another time), but I’ve always made it home (mostly) in one piece.

And that’s how I felt when I joined @wendymac for her “30 Days of Drawing” this past January: freedom from having to have all the answers, to do it “right,” to know exactly where I was going.

When I put pen (or pencil or crayon or marker) to paper each day, I wasn’t sure what would happen. But I felt safe enough (because of Wendy’s guidance and feeling held by the community) that something always did.

For thirty days, there were no wrong decisions, no pressures to be “good.” It was show up, pull out the paper, and see what happens, dot-dot-dot.

I could go on and on about Wendy. And someday I will. For now, I encourage you to check out the amazing work she does creating connection through art.

I approached this mobile (Tipu) in the same way: show up and see what happens. With most of my mobiles, every wire ends with a metal (or wooden) piece. The wire terminates. With Tipu, the wire suggests, it points to, it offers a dot dot dot.

I felt like a kid drawing in the sky with wire.
I felt like a kid drawing in the sky with wire.
I felt like a kid drawing in the sky with wire.

Where can you show up by feel today, giving yourself the freedom to allow a moment to unfold without judgement, without knowing the outcome, trusting yourself and open to experience whatever may come?