“…But who tells you what to do?” I asked this of my grandfather every summer before he walked out to the field alone. He smiled and went about doing it. At five years old, I thought he must be just about the smartest man in the world. Because whether he knew what to do or not, somehow he was doing it. Planting. Growing. Fixing tractors. Trucks. Harvesting. Selling. There was no google. No experts. No daily planners. Long before Nike encouraged us, or even thought of it, he “just did it.” 

I suppose it was this knowledge that served for me, almost as permission, to forge my own path. To become an artist. People through the years have looked to me with those same questioning eyes…wondering how to do it. People want answers. Solutions. Guidelines. A reason to get up in the morning. But the thing is, you can’t wait for a reason to get up, you have to get up and go find that reason, that solution, every day. 

And my five year old questioning self can sneak in from time to time. It happens for all of us. Receiving my new sketchbook, I hesitated to begin. The blank pages offer no outlines. No directions. 

I saw the signs everywhere in Mississippi for their state bird — the Mockingbird. We learned about them from Harper Lee.  Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. They don’t have sheet music. No back-ups. They just sing. I opened my sketchbook to the middle and started my song. 

The sun is coming up today in New Orleans. We don’t have a plan. We smile, and go about doing it, singing, in the language of the Mockingbird.