I really like it when people recognize my "talent". I really enjoy other people's talents that I don't have, like singing and gardening (everything I try and plant dies).
One year my mom asked me to take care of her plants while she and my dad were on vacation. I asked her to please not put me through this torture. I didn't want to be the reason all her plants died. I couldn't take the responsibility. I asked her to get someone else. But I lived "next door" 2/10ths of a mile away and my sister lived 10 miles away-but she's a great gardener. My mom encouraged me that I could do it and I reluctantly gave in. I was in my 40's at the time but mothers are still mothers and can get you to do things you don't want to do. So she made a schedule of which plants to water when and she showed me all of them. I did want the note said and after the week they were still alive but pretty limp. when my mom got home, I went through the list with her to tell her when I last watered each one. I came to a particularly large plant on the porch in an old 70's macrame hanger and told her when that one needed to be watered next. She stared at me in disbelief and said, "that one is plastic". I wondered why all the water kept pouring out of it so easily.
A little off track, just a bubble.......pop!
Back to talents. I just wanted to say that having a talent for something is nice, having that talent be a passion in your life can be a little more complicated and then taking that talent and passion and doing hard work everyday to hone that talent to make the best art you can at that time is what people see. If I just relied on my talent, I don't think anyone would notice very much, but wrapping it in passion and decorating it with alot of hard work and learning can make it a gift.
