Curve Balls

This week I’ve been reflecting on my experiences with curve balls in my internship. At Common Art I was asked to facilitate a framing group. I aided the artists in locating matting and description cards for their art, took note of supplies needed and held space for anyone who desired to prepare their work for display in the upcoming show. It warmed my heart to have one of the participants take the lead in the framing workshop. She has an eye for presentation and really supported another participant in his efforts. Having no experience in matting or framing art, I felt relieved to have this woman participant share her abilities with the group.

On Wednesday of last week Bekah, Liana, and I realized that there was a flaw in our schedule for Café Arts, the expressive-arts program that we are offering for the folks at Café Emmanuel. We had a decision to make and choose to adhere to the schedule to meet the needs of the participants in the program. Monday night on the way to the Art and Spirituality group we were halted when my car battery died. We had a couple different options, leave the car on the side of the road and call a taxi, locate a Zipcar in order to get to our program, call AAA and ask for road side assistance, or see if a pedestrian could aid us in jumping the car. Our number one concern was to inform the volunteers and participants of our situation. We decided to call AAA and wait for assistance and in the meantime were supported by pedestrians seeking to help.

With this being my week to write the blog post I realized that so often we are faced with situations that require a decision be made in that moment and sometimes navigating those on the spot situations can be difficult. That led me to think about intuition and what happens when life throws you a curve ball? I felt called to volunteer to facilitate the group at Common Art because for me that sounded like an opportunity to connect with the participants on an artistic and creative level. Our decision to stick to the schedule at Café Arts was informed by our understanding of the population and the need for structure in a newly formed program, and we waited for roadside assistance because it didn’t feel safe to leave my car parked on the side of the road. After considering each of these scenarios and responses I realized that an informed instinct helped determine the outcome. I realized during this week that so many of my instinctual decisions are informed by my life experiences and that with these curve balls that life throws new learnings develop, which then inform the next decision to swing at the curve ball or wait for another pitch.

– Jessi Naff, Nov. 16, 2014