A younger man approved my then long hair, telling me he wished women wouldn’t cut their hair the minute they reached a certain age. 

I used to think imagination preceded art. If dreams run rampant, haunting the day with their memories, that’s inspiration, right? If feelings are ripe, it’s time to create something. Yes? 

Then there was that time I stepped out of my comfort zone into an acting class taught by Scott Plate. Asking his students to journal about their experiences, he promised to read every word. I soon began to richly dream, and freely add the findings to my journal. 

The dreams were vivid and complex, my sense and sensitivity at full tilt. A gift, I thought, that just when assigned the task of introspection, dreams should surface, ripe with illustration.  

Bill Moyers recently aired an interview from 2004. He asked Maurice Sendak, author illustrator of ‘Where the Wild Things Are,’ how he calmed his own demons.

'Art has always been my salvation. And my gods are Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Mozart. I believe in them with all my heart. And when Mozart is playing in my room, I am in conjunction with something I can't explain. I don't need to. I know that if there's a purpose for life, it was for me to hear Mozart. Or if I walk in the woods and I see an animal, the purpose of my life was to see that animal. I can recollect it, I can notice it. I'm here to take note of. And that is beyond my ego, beyond anything that belongs to me.'
Maurice Sendak, Bill Moyers Journal