Studio 360

I Changed My Mind and I'm Really Happy: I was a single mom with a two year old when my own mother was diagnosed with stage four cancer. I was fairly despondent about my future, when a single mom friend said something that made a light go on. She told me that she'd never been able to leave school since her son's birth, that going to grad school was the way she could access child care. So I decided to find a graduate program that had child care. I found the City University of New York's Law School. It had child care. I took the LSAT, and I applied to the CUNY Law School. I applied ONLY to that school, and I got in. When I started law school my son was three years old. I finished law school on time, with a six year old, and passed the bar on my second try. While I started a unique poverty law network while in my last year of law school, I'm not practicing law right now, but I am working on behalf of the vulnerable elderly in New York, and I'm supporting my son, who's about to enter fourth grade. Changing my mind was a great experience, and I'm looking forward to doing it again quite soon.

I was raised at an odd intersection--child of an environmentalist botanist in a baptist community in a small Arizona town (my parents embraced evangelical Christianity despite disagreeing with much of the politics). Being a dutiful daughter and the peacekeeper of the family, I threw myself into all things Christian and truly believed I had a real living relationship with God (as the lingo goes). When I got to college, several fundamental ideas just could no longer fit into my expanded horizons.

The turning point came when I visited Darwin's house in England. I cannot tell this story to encompass the full range of emotions I felt that day without sounding hopelessly romantic. Basically, I walked through that house closely examining every single item, especially the reprints of Christians during Darwin's time spouting off inanities at the top of their lungs. Then I walked out into the intensely lovely garden. Always in the past I had felt the closest communion with God while in nature. It was like I felt wrapped by God's presence when enjoying natural beauty. I looked at Darwin's flowers. I stared at a hedge with a flower at my height for the longest time and felt stone cold. Always before I had taken God's presence utterly for granted and suddenly I felt nothing beyond the physical. It was as if God had left me in that instant.

I still search for him/her, but I don't think I will ever quite feel so enveloped again.

The theory of multiple intelligences was what empowered me to change my life - it was thrilling to hear the interview with Howard Gardner. I was studying Biology: Systems Ecology when I realized I couldn't force myself to pass chemistry. I was also doing more rock climbing than studying. When I was exposed to the theory of multiple intelligences it gave me the freedom to realize that I was visually oriented to the world, as well as kinetically. It made way more sense than trying to force myself to study something for a career. It felt so natural, when I heard complements like 'your climbing looks like a ballerina!' and I could accept as intelligence the compulsion to make things beautiful. The simple truth of it fit like a glove.

So I dropped the Bio major and went to declare an art major. Despite the skepticism of the art professor taking my application to start an art major in my Junior year of college - I had been shooting and printing my own black and white prints in the Science department's unused darkroom - and I got in.

It kinda proves the theory - that I could shoot and print my work without being taught.

So thanks Mr. Gardner - it was really fun to hear your voice and discernment.