While no one could really figure out what exactly my uncle’s invention is from this picture, we all sat around the table in mutual agreement that it was amazing. We passed it around my grandmother’s kitchen table, each adding new quizzical looks to the conversation where we tried to decipher what looked like a windmill on top of antlers…

My grandmother’s side of the family is full of inventors, artists and mad scientists. Being somewhat kooky was just a fact of life, creativity was embraced. I have no idea what happened- except that somehow the excessive quirkiness of my generation isn’t as celebrated, just seen as, well, weird.

The phrase I hear most often from my family is, “You’re going to do what?” Lately I have been brought to tears of laughter trying to explain why I am packing it all in and moving to a sheep farm in southern England in 2 weeks. Because my family has embraced this next move, instead of blocking my path, which is what I thought would happen when I divulged my next move.

Their questions come from a place of love and happiness instead of disdain and annoyance- something I had never prepared for as I rehearsed the lines I was going to share with my grandfather, a U.S. Army Colonel whose story about watching someone’s foot fall off a guerney in Vietnam terrified me as a child. He’s a lovely lovely man, just a much more practical and realistic person than myself.

So, I took a deep breath and said, “I’m going to spend the next two months writing and researching traditional textile methods.” The response was predictable, “Who’s going to pay you?” As was my answer, “No one. I’ll be just getting room and board.” What wasn’t expected was the immediate response of, “You’re going live on a farm? With sheep? And no money? That sounds really interesting.” And he was serious.

I was so terrified that this next chapter of my life would seem so ludicrous and off the map that I would be bombarded with queries about 401ks and insurance and the future and why I was single. I hadn’t even envisioned the notion that he, too, would agree that this is something that I need to do, steady paycheck or not.

Lately the saying, “leap and the net will appear” has been my mantra. Who knows if the net will cradle my footsteps, I just know it’s time to take that first step. It’s time to remember that sometimes, like in old photographs, life isn’t always clear from the first glance.