Today is Day One of the Art Apple A Day Retrospective – for information on the project click here.
Day One – October 1, 2010
I had just been reading one of Seth Godin‘s books (who at one point I emailed and actually received an email response – gosh I wish I still had that email)
And that’s when I got a wild hair.
Truly, that was what it was because seriously… what was I possibly thinking? A piece of art every day paired with a blog post? I had no idea what I had just set myself up for.
Anyway… I had been reading his book, The Bootstrapper’s Bible, because I was at a point after years of struggling with my health that I was finally seeing that life might be able to go on. I had to figure out what the heck I was going to do with myself. I had managed first a part time job, then a full time one that required two hours of commuting a day and occasional travel and getting those jobs required some major finagling having been out of the workforce for so long. The pace I was managing is extremely difficult for anyone I told myself but I desperately did not – could not – go back to where I was before the therapy and medications started working. I realized I had to design my future in a way that could accommodate my limitations. I quit the full time job with no clear path forward.
(There is actually more to this point in the story and I’ll share it at some appropriate time during the next 364 days – it’s a doozie!)
During this crossroad, reading Mr. Godin’s book and manifesto to hopefully figure something out, the first two sentences caught me and sparked the idea:
“I am a bootstrapper. I have initiative and insight and guts, but not much money.”
~ Seth Godin
The job realization beat down what little self confidence I had built back up and I now know that being a Bootstrapper with a chronic degenerative disease was a book in and of itself and the one that might have been more appropriate but I’m the ‘leap and the net will appear’ kind of person.
Here I was, I had no money and no job. Thankfully my husband cared for me all those years I wasn’t working but we didn’t have the resources for me to launch any kind of endeavor and the what ifs were piled so high I couldn’t see past them. However, the me from “Before AS” was a bootstrapper at heart and I’ve always been called to create. Reading the manifesto I realized that if I shared my story in a small and joyful way it could be an entré to building confidence and finding my way back to myself which would lead me to design that life I was looking for.
And, so, I quickly created this extremely simple digital apple on my phone (you can see how low the quality is – this was a phone app from 10 years ago!) and posted it immediately so I wouldn’t lose my nerve! I was afraid if I waited to the following day to create in the traditional way I was proposing, that I would talk myself out of, “Art Apple A Day” and I can’t even imagine my life now, without this being a part of me and the AS community.
To see my first post from 10 years ago click here or on the image above.
And the story will continue tomorrow!
