A Simple Truth

I’ve never been in the military. My father fought in the Korean War, was injured, and spent nearly a year of his life in a hospital in Japan.  Many years later, art school was where I found my direction. Perhaps this was my way of deflecting the impact the war had on my father. Fill the world with light, creativity, and color. At least that is how it feels now, looking back.

The Marines have a slogan, one I find myself thinking about now. “Improvise, adapt, and overcome.” This is a good one, and one that not only applies to the Marines but to all of us. We all have challenges, obstacles, and issues to deal with. Regardless of how small, or how common, this slogan is one to bare in mind, one to carry with us and one to suggest to others along with a helping hand if the need arises.

A year ago I was laid off after thirty years in the corporate world, we moved, I started a new business and I felt like there were more questions than answers in my life. I often hear my father’s words, “You’ll get it Aymala, you’ll figure it out.” Improvise, adapt, and overcome. My jewelry dreams are beyond my current capability, so my days are filled with webinars, podcasts and trial and error, lots of trial and error.

Maybe the key ingredient I’m looking for is adaptation. What’s new will only be new for a short while and then it will become part of me, part of us, as we all move forward as a species and global collective. There are few certainties in life, so the rest is a fluid and ever-changing tapestry of multiple-choice questions.  So here’s to improvising, here’s to adapting and here’s to overcoming whatever it is that stands in our path.