design

I recently read A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink and came away feeling better about myself as a creative person.  It basically states that the future of the United States will be innovation and creation.  Because we're losing our manufacturing sector to the global economy, we need to come up with a new way to be a superpower.  Why not in design?

There is, of course, a lot more to this book, but it was the idea of design as a commodity that I couldn't shake.  Who doesn't appreciate (if not love in a lustful, heated way) great design?  Why else is the iPhone so popular ?  The apps?  Those are design at work, too.

As a person who was once voted "Most Creative" by her peers (thank you, Class of '90), I have been wandering lost through the desert of careers unsure of what I could do with this exalted honor.  What the hell does it mean to be creative?

I've been obsessed with design all my life, I just didn't understand what it was.  I didn't have a name for it. I loved to see my dad sketch ideas for guns (he's been a part-time gunsmith for as long as I can remember) and then watch as he created that idea in his shop.  It was amazing to see something on paper come to life in our old garage.  While I don't have the same appreciation for firearms that my dad has, I do admire how he worked out his ideas from conception to finish. 

When our daughter was two, my husband used scrap wood to create a castle for her, complete with turrets.  It was thrown together rather quickly and looked great.  Pieces of wood that would have been thrown into a landfill became the bricks of our kid's playhouse.  Great sustainable design.

I write every day.  I have to, I always have, whether someone else is reading it or not.  The other thing I do everyday has to do with design of some sort.  The way I see it, I might as well get more serious about it.  I'm looking into masters programs in industrial design.  I have a few months left before I finish my marketing management degree and then it's on to focus on the art and science of design.

wealth

I grew up poor. 

More than once, I lived in a trailer.  My family's nicest home was a tract house in a low-income subdivision.  My dad was a trucker; my mom a motel maid. 

I remember getting a ride home from a very nice boy that I really, really liked and telling him not to drive down my driveway.  I didn't want him to see the bright blue trailer we lived in my senior year.  I told him I didn't want his car to get muddy.  He laughed, "So you should get muddy instead?"  It was a John Hughes moment and I was Molly Ringwald. 

I vowed to be more than that.  I'm not.  

So far.

I got the dreamer gene from my folks, but I have a strong reason to go beyond the dreaming stage - my daughter.  I didn't go to college after graduation because my parents told me not to get any loans.  They didn't have any money set aside for it and I didn't have enough to go to the great schools I could have, so I didn't.

She will.  I'll make sure of it. 

[Oh, and I'm going to live in Italy, too.  And write books.  And drink loads of red wine.  Expensive red wine.  Don't doubt me.]