Morning Java - Watercolor on Paper
(c) Ana Lydia Ochoa-Monaco
I was a precarious child and introverted teenager. I choose to draw, design, read and write instead of the physical activities many of my friends (and family) engaged in.
To make room for my career, I stored my notebooks, and hid my art work to focus on all that was to come.
But now I am older, and I think wiser.
I have (finally) given-in to my need to display my artwork and reread my notebooks; and, I have been surprised to find ideas that never made it past the page they were written in, or glimmers of insight that could have been taken more seriously - then and now.
I wish I could speak to my younger self, because she was a pretty darn creative woman - that didn't realize how far ahead of her time she was.
In those notebooks I also found the start of a novel that brought to light the hardships women go through to grow in their career. I guess, in a small way, it was my version of Leaning In - but I didn't know it then.
Now I do.
"...In those four-star travel photos and group toasts with pretty strangers with pretty food, Mara posed with sad empty eyes and a loneliness that no amount of success could fill.
But she smiled. She knew others looked up to her. They wanted 'this;' not knowing that it could all 'of this' could be swept away.
She smiled because she wanted to believe what others thought: She was happy to be a career woman. A pretty, successful and very much alone woman."- A Study on Women at Work, A Novel - working title.This is the start of something, Small or big, I am embracing the writer within and publishing these stories. Our stories.