I've never had a very calculated approach to life. There have been times when I felt badly about being sort of unintentional, but the truth of the matter is that it doesn't really bother me. I only ever felt bad about because, societally, we love plans. Everyone is on this manifestation kick lately. And that seems to really help a lot of people, I just don't happen to be one of them. I actually quite like the randomness of life. The most interesting things that have happened in my life were completely unplanned.
In 2008, for example, I moved from Minneapolis to Austin, TX. About 3 or 4 days before I was supposed to leave, I found a little dog. It was a funny little creature, black and white mostly and running down the street followed by an unmanned leash scraping the gravel behind it. I assumed that the little dog had gotten out of his yard and that he probably lived nearby. My intention, when I picked up the other end of his leash, was to simply to take him home.
Daniel Handler once wrote, "Assumptions are dangerous things to make, and like all dangerous things to make -- bombs, for instance, or strawberry shortcake -- if you make even the tiniest mistake you can find yourself in terrible trouble." Turns out he was right. I spent the next few days walking the dog to different parts of the neighborhood, hoping that he would simply walk up to whichever front door was his. Didn't work. The only thing I discovered from this method was that he had a bizarre pension for shitting on flowers, and not just any flowers. They had to be the prettiest flowers in the most elaborately landscaped yard he could find. It was a very strange and somewhat embarrassing behavior. The day before I drove out of Minnesota, I managed to find the dog's owner. Sort of. He actually drove by us, while we were on one of our flower defamation walks, yelled, "He that's my dog!" out the window, and followed it up with, "Eh. Keep 'em," before driving away. That was kind of a shock for me. I had assumed, since finding the dog, that someone wanted him back. Assumptions, not my strong suit. So, the following morning, I loaded all my belongings into my VW, stacked blankets and pillows on the passenger seat, placed the little dog on top of the pile and we drove to Texas together. If you were assuming that we lived happily ever after, you're probably also shitty at assumptions because we did not. Not together anyway. We lived together for a couple of stressful months, because I wasn't really moving to Austin to live in Austin. I was moving to Austin to stay (rent free) with my ex-husband's father, save some money and then go to Belize. I'm not even sure why I was going to go to Belize, it was must something a lot of people were doing in 2008. You know, before they all started going to Thailand and Iceland. Anyway, my father-in-law wasn't keen on the idea of living with the little dog because there were already several humans, dogs and cats living in the house. I didn't want to drop him off at a shelter. It took a little while, a little money, a few shots and the removal of his testicles, but I ended up finding a lovely family in north Austin who wanted a dog. I got a Christmas card from them that year, it was a photo of Finn (that's what they named him) with Santa. That was the last I heard of Finn the dog, but he was the reason I eventually became a program director at Austin Pets Alive, one of the largest and most successful no kill shelters in America.
I don't work in animal rescue anymore, but, my bigger point, is that I never even intended to. It sort of just happened. I'm 36 years into my story, I've found this to be a common theme. I've decided I should simply lean into.
Most people will tell you, in order to have a successful project, you need structure, you need a purpose and you need to accountability to stay on course. I tend to find that approach doesn't work well for me. I need freedom more than I need structure. I'm more dedicated to exploration than following directions. I once took a road trip to Memphis, ended up spending 3 days in Kansas City and 0 days in Memphis. I had a wonderful time, met a lot of interesting people, and I still consider that a successful trip.
This project is a good way for me to explore what creativity really means to me. I'm going to make 100 images of cauliflower, but I haven't the slightest fucking clue what they're going to look like. That would ruin the surprise.
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