It Calls Me

Stop and listen to those waves rolling in and rolling out of your life. What are they calling to you?

Have you ever just known that you love something, even before experiencing it? That was the ocean for me as a little girl. I grew up as a landlocked Idahoan -- meaning the only kinds of sea I ever saw for the first decade of my life were of hay and potato fields surrounding the city I lived in. If I went out a little further, we could find seas of sagebrush and lava beds.

But the idea of the ocean? Like, the real ocean where you look as far as you can and never see where the waves of surreal blue end? Oh, I LOVED that idea.

The movies The Little Mermaid and Dot and the Whale were ones I watched nonstop as a little girl, according to my parents. Apparently, I watched Dot and the Whale so much that it wore out and broke the video tape (is that even what they were called back then? I'm feeling ancient about now). I don't even remember much about that movie now, other than this incredible feeling of being a young girl entering the mysterious world of the sea.

The seeds of my art career actually began with this idea of the ocean. My absolute first memory of drawing anything was when my artistic older brother taught me how to draw an orca. I drew hundreds of orcas and dolphins during my childhood. Hundreds! Can you imagine the day the movie Free Willy came out? Me: in heaven.

There just was something so fascinating about the idea of the ocean -- its colors and creatures and fascinating treasures that wash ashore. It called to me. Its crashing voice carried on salty air still calls me.

As I've been painting waves this week, I've been thinking about this idea of "being called." When I think of what it means to be called, I think of being asked to do something by someone with a higher perspective or vision than myself. The call may be unexpected, or even initially unwanted, but it's an invitation to try something new, or uncomfortable, or time-consuming in order to contribute to some greater good.

I've felt the call to create, to paint, and to write for as long as I can remember. This year is the first year in a long time that I have embraced that call instead of feeling unqualified, guilty, or overwhelmed. It has not been easy to get past those feelings, nor has it been easy to make the time and effort required. But I'm learning that as I do those things that I feel called in my life to do, I'm getting the same feeling I had as a 10-year-old girl, standing on the wet sandy shores of the ocean for the first time:

It's a feeling of profound satisfaction along with a deeper longing that can never be fully satisfied. It's a realization that you're so much smaller in the world than you ever imagined,

but that you have so much bigger of an impact than you ever thought possible too.

It's your soul opening and your vision widening while being entirely focused in on one blissful moment.

What are those waves that roll in and out of your life calling you to do? And is today the day that you dare to take the first steps, or next steps, or the course correction needed to do make the journey?

Heed the call,my friends. Lava beds and potato fields are beautiful, but sometimes you just need to get sun-warmed sand between your toes and feel cool, foamy water wash around your ankles. It's good for the soul.