At the beginning of the year, I wrote about choosing a word to define the big picture of the coming year. I chose Discovery. Discovery is the word that best defines my new focus.

          Throughout my life I have made choices. There are a few that I regret, but not many that I would change. Even so, those choices limited other choices. When I chose not to return to college and take a job on the other side of the country from my parents, I cut many ties and limited my support circle, at least until I plugged into the new area. When I returned home, I turned my back on opportunities there to explore opportunities nearer to my family. When I married, I no longer sought out romantic relationships. When I had children, I chose to spend the majority of my time caring for them. (I also made conscious choices to spend time away from them or force them to care for themselves, as appropriate.) With every choice I made, my other available choices changed or were limited, narrowing my focus and goals.

          I now find myself in a season where my choices have vastly expanded. There are few true limitations on how I can choose to spend the time left to me. My age may be one limitation, but not a huge one. I may not be able to study medicine and become a surgeon . . .but I don’t want to. So I don’t feel limited by not being able to be a doctor. As I evaluate my life and make new choices that will determine what the next season will look like, I realize I need a short season of Discovery. Actually, I realize I’ve already embarked on this new season . . . and it has been full of new experiences and new discoveries in the midst of old, familiar experiences.

          The summer was spent in road trips to visit important family and friends. I didn’t get to visit everyone important to me, but I did get to visit many. And I had long conversations with others. Relationships are being reconnected, forgotten family history rediscovered. I’m exploring new relationships with my adult children. (And adding a daughter-in-love!) I’ve investigated several options for employment and careers. My latest choice is to return to college.

          What am I Discovering? Well, I’m rediscovering what it’s like to work a night shift . . . utilizing new skills I learned in a course I took. (And I’ve discovered I don’t want to stay at this job much longer.). I’m discovering adult children can be even more fun than little ones. They can also disappear for days or weeks, never realizing how much I miss them. (But it really is a joy to see them becoming fully matured adults.) I’m also discovering what it is like to attend college. (Well, that’s actually a rediscovery. But college at 52 is a lot different than college at 19.)

          I enrolled in the university that is in our town. I’m going to discover new things about life and people and subjects as I attend college. One of those new things is art. (I decided to explore my creative side. I hope that focusing on other creative endeavors will release the creative block that is hampering my writing . . . and my life.) I’m taking 2 art classes. One class is drawing. We spend almost 3 hours drawing. As I shade and draw and color, I have had plenty of time the think. My mind usually just wanders, never really lighting on a subject. I’ve noticed, though, that I find myself seeing other opportunities to draw., desiring more time to draw and seeking to learn how to achieve certain effects.

          That reawakening and rediscovering is expanding into other areas of my life, too. In other words, as I Discover, my appetite for Discovery grows. I’m coming alive. Appropriate, don’t you think, seeing that spring is just around the corner?

          Come grow with me!

          Last week I went to a musical with some friends. My Fair Lady is a play I’ve always enjoyed. In the past, I have experienced it as a beautiful love story. The prickly, selfish, clueless man finally meets a woman that breaks through those prickles and teaches him to care about someone other than himself. He helps her develop skills that give her access to a better life; she helps him develop relational skills that gives him access to a better quality of life; finally they come together in mutual love.

          The story I watched unfold last week was not that same, satisfying love story.

          Eliza is young and stuck. She’s stuck in her lower class world because of the way she talks. She wants to work in a flower shop, where she can make more money and be more respectable. She wants out of the life where circumstances seem to be forcing her. When she hears Henry Higgins boast that he could teach anyone to talk proper English, she takes him up on the offer.

          Instead of teaching her to talk as a respectable flower girl/shopkeeper, he gets caught up in his own dream and sees her as his tool to achieve it. He’s sure he can teach her to talk like a true Englishwoman born into nobility. He could pass a street flower girl off as a duchess. He gives no thought, and discounts others who do, to how that would affect Eliza. In fact, throughout it all, he never shows the least sign of even recognizing Eliza or her feelings, much less empathizing or understanding them. Even when he supposedly realizes he loves her, all his words show is that he’s gotten used to seeing her face, to hearing her voice, to having her near. She can find his slippers. He never voices anything that made me think he even tried to understand anything from Eliza’s perspective.

          Is Henry Higgins a clueless, somewhat selfish bachelor who begins to learn in the course of the play, to notice and care about another person? Is it realistic to believe that the after-life of this story includes a healthy romantic relationship between him and Eliza? Or is he a selfish, myopic and heartless man who finds another person to stroke his ego and indulge his selfishness?

          For my part, instead of watching a touching, comedic love story, I observed the beginnings of a poignant, but blatant emotionally abusive relationship. The actions, words and reactions of both characters were classic examples of such a relationship.

          But!

          Isn’t that what fiction is meant to do? Shouldn’t the reader (or viewer) be immersed in the experience? That realistic portrayal of human emotions is the mark of a true storyteller, is it not?

          I still believe My Fair Lady is great show. I identified with Eliza so much it was almost painful. (Okay, let’s be honest. It was painful.) Even so, I enjoyed the show even as I flinched. And, once again, I was inspired to keep writing in the the hopes that one day . . . just maybe . . .I’ll be able to write something as moving and lasting.

Stephanie is on a road trip with a couple of her adult children. She thought she would still be able to write and upload today’s blog, but didn’t happen. She’ll be back for sure next week. Rather than leave you with nothing to read, though, she suggests you read an old post of hers from the 100th Week of Routines For Writers. You might want to check out the “best of” blogs Shonna and Kitty wrote that week, too.