The Renaissance Woman

Someone called me a "Renaissance Woman" last week. I laughed because in the Renaissance times a Renaissance Woman was supposed to marry well, be loyal to her husband and give birth to boys. She obviously doesn't know me very well & forgets I'm not from Utah.

I think what she meant to say was that I was a Renaissance Man, who unlike the woman, had to be well-educated, or excel in a wide variety of subjects. (It's a prerequisite for being a first grade teacher these days.) I guess in old Italy (around the 1400's) some dude named Leon Battista Alberti said a man can do all things if he will. It basically considered man the center of the universe, limitless in his capacities for development, and led to the notion that men should try to embrace all knowledge and develop their own capacities as fully as possible.

Well, I call it dabbling; or if I had a therapist, he'd probably call it a scheme, an ego driven attention getter, a means to get noticed, especially by my mom who favored or should I say favors my brother. (Yes, sibling rivalry & jealousy, still at this age...pathetic, I know.)

But seriously, I tend to dabble...quite well according to my fans. Unfortunately though, I quite often get bored with it because I obsess over it. I met a guy who climbs, so I bought my gear & climbed walls for a year. I had a photographer friend, so I got a range-finder and took pictures for months. I knew a great artist in San Francisco, so I started painting & making art for a year or two. I met poets in New York, so I wrote poems and recited them in public. (The list goes on...) Most recently, about a year ago, I met a friend who plays music & writes songs, so I bought a guitar & started making up songs. I've subsequently surrounded myself with musicians and even created a Myspace page so I could have my music up in cyberspace.

Well, just last week, I met a blogger...my first ever. I was intrigued, read his stuff (quite good, and really funny), and found that I had met two other bloggers all within a week. Interesting, I thought... Then I remembered what that French-Jewish clairvoyant said to me before I left NYC. "You're with the wrong man. He's a child. You'll not meet your soul mate until you start writing." This, of course, was a deduction on her part after she looked at my hands. She probably thought I like to write after she noticed the bump on my middle finger from never having learned to hold a pencil correctly. (I press way too hard & have a fat callous that never goes away even though the only writing I do these days is sign my name on the credit card receipts. Hmm, that could explain the 115,000 miles on my Delta card.)

So, since it's been over a year since I dumped the "man child" & have yet to meet anyone, perhaps it's time I start writing. So here I go...the modern Renaissance Woman, dabbling again so I can become the Renaissance Woman of the Renaissance times.