stepping stone sunday: be a rock fairy (and perhaps win some rock fairy magic)

I arrived just 10 minutes before the reading was to begin. A four-hour Delta Airlines delay had left me with few options for actually getting there at all. While others lined up to talk to the gate agent in the tiny Asheville airport about this impending doom, I went back through security with my Ogio Layover Fantastic Rollaboard Wonder Bag and stood before the ticket agent at the Delta desk.

"Well, it looks like we can't get you there until 10:35pm tonight," he offered. "That won't do," I said nicely, my left eyebrow starting to twitch: "I have a book reading an hour from the Manchester, New Hampshire, airport at 7:00pm tonight. I have to be there."

"Sorry," he said, dismissing me. "Why don't you check with USAirways to see if they can help you."

Blink.

"No," I said, imagining Debbie Kelley waiting for me at the Manchester airport, a vision that moved me to clear and immediate action. "My ticket is with Delta. My ticket every single week of my life is with Delta. YOU check with USAirways to see it they can help me."

Long story short: I flew to Boston instead, Debbie arranged for a car to pick me up, and I literally walked into the book reading with 10 minutes to spare. Debbie greeted me with a pink sparkly crown and sceptor that she had made, saying "37days." She was handing out the coolest candles I had ever seen to all the full tables in the restaurant, full of people--it turns out--who had come to hear me read. All except one table in the middle with three people who seemed surprised at the chaos, ate, sat through a few stories, and then escaped with their leftovers.

As Debbie handed out crazy wonderful candles, a woman named Kim Mailhot handed out hand-painted rocks she had made, beautiful stones with gorgeous sentiments on them. I said hello to her as she passed, and she handed me a bag of rocks with a beautiful note to me, told me the story of the rocks--"I leave rocks everywhere," she said, "at the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower, near the supermarket..."

"You're a Rock Fairy!" I remember saying to her, thrilled by her guerilla rock art. "Yes, I guess I am!" she responded.

She held out her basket of rocks for me. "Choose one," she said. And so I did. My rock said "Pain = change." I was struck silent for a moment, realizing that this was the rock I would carry with me. It is in my wallet and goes with me everywhere. The night before that trip, I had received some very difficult feedback from a friend. Difficult because of the grains of truth in it. Painful. And so, the next day, in the arms of this generous amazing woman had come my rock: "Pain = change." Funny how life works out that way sometimes.

Kim recently made me a video to celebrate the first birthday of Life is a Verb! And so, for that birthday celebration, for that rock, for her generous artistic self in the world, a gift is winging its way to Kim. It's a secret what it is. I'll tell you about it after she receives it.

AND! Kim sent a beautiful paper quilt square for my birthday along with a bag of her amazing magical rocks to give away to a 37days reader! If you leave a comment below with a quote about art or creativity, you'll be entered into the drawing to win this fabulous gift from Kim!

Comments

[joyce lukaczer]

Living is a form of not being sure,
not knowing what's next or how. The
moment you know how, you begin to
die alittle. The artist never entirely
knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but
we take leap after leap in the dark.

Agnes De Mille

[Dani]

I don't have a quote about creativity. But how about one about truth.

The truth means responsibility. Which is why everyone dreads it.

Ugg. Hits at my heart. I hope your feedback was in love.

Love your rock. ;)

[smallbluebird]

On Writing:
Let me walk through the fields of paper
touching with my wand
dry stems and stunted
butterflies....
~Denise Levertov, "A Walk through the Notebooks"

I love your rock and Kim's idea of leaving rocks in places for others to find. ;-)

[Maureen Doallas]

I saw the angel in the marble and I carved until I set him free.
~ Michelangelo

[QuinnCreative]

Here's something I discovered after trying to avoid it for the longest time: We don't FIND meaning in life, we MAKE meaning in life.
And making meaning, is, of course, the core of creativity.

[Lisa]

No matter how slow the film, Spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer It has chosen.
-Minor White

[Deb Owen]

Love these! (And Delta. Hmpf. I used to only fly Delta. Not so much anymore. ;-) )

I was just speaking with someone yesterday whose whole entire existence seems to revolve around keeping someone from ever feeling any pain -- ever. We discussed how he was then keeping this person from being allowed to grow as well. (It was quite the conversation, actually.)

Here's my quote:
"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." - Scott Adams

[Sherry]

Happiness... it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.
Vincent Van Gogh

This is about the Queen of Arts..with her big heart walking!! Kim is one of the most generous souls I have ever met...I'm so glad you and Kim spent time together Patti. I know it meant a great deal to her, and she was over the moon when you christened her the "rock fairy"!!

[Carolie]

If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. -- Vincent Van Gogh

[Hannah]

I love rocks.

"Listen as if the world had just ended, and there was nothing left but vibration."

by @tannermenard

[Ellen]

On creativity-

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries. A. A. Milne

I like everything organized and just so; I struggle to let go and just be.

Your book is the best book I have read in years. Many thanks for writing it.

[robin]

by christine mason miller
"and it is all part of one giant creative stew. where the more mixed up i can make things, the more interesting everything is...where instead of proclaming something does not merit the title "creative act", i'll remove the categories altogether and see where all these tiny bits of inspiration and wisdom are hiding today, waiting for me to notice them, usually right under my nose."

[Kim]

Kim will be over the moon that she made your blog! I would love one of her rocks, she is, in her own way, a rock to many.

[Regina]

There is a fountain of youth; it's your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people your love. When you learn to tap this source you will truly have defeated age. ~ Sophia Loren

I want to be a rock fairy!

[Ruth]

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
~ Sylvia Plath

[Bo Mackison]

Everyone who’s ever taken a shower has had an idea. It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference. Nolan Bushnell

I love your book - dipping into a few pages is a gift I give myself when the doing gets hard.

[Kelly]

How cool to come to your blog and see the face of one of my other blogland friends here!
"It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child." --Pablo Picasso

[Maureen Doallas]

Some favorites from poet Muriel Rukeyser:

The sources of poetry are in the spirit seeking completeness.

The universe is made of stories, not atoms.

Exchange is creation.

Breathe-in experience, breathe-out poetry.

If there were no poetry on any day in the world, poetry would have to be invented that day. For there would be an intolerable hunger.

[Deborah in IL]

As people who paint and draw, we are all connected by our pictures. Artists who are working today, making paintings and picture books and cartoons, and those who lived hundreds and even thousands of years ago, like the cave painters in France and Spain, all speak to us and show us what they saw and how they felt. And I respond with my pictures, and you respond with yours.

Mordicai Gerstein in Artist to Artist

[Em]

A pile of rocks ceases to be a rock pile when somebody contemplates it with the idea of a cathedral in mind.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery