The Detours are the Path

This was not the plan. I had a plan. If you know me personally, you know it was a solid plan. Spreadsheets were made. Gantt charts catalogued the aggressive but manageable timelines of key activities and their dependencies in an intentional array of colors. Resources were identified and allocated. Equipment was purchased. My use of the Google search engine was so voracious they sent me a “That’s enough, Champ. Let’s give someone else a lane on the information highway” email.

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Detour noun:
de·​tour ˈdē-ˌtu̇r   also  di-ˈtu̇r
a deviation from a direct course or the usual procedure
Merriam Webster Dictionary

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I had spent the past three years, in between photographing rowers, amassing photographs of the striking landscape that surrounded them. Ships left to rust on the river. Moss creeping up pilings once shouldering the weight of progress that now silvered in the sun. Fat seals warming their bellies on disregarded logs. My plan was to sell them. With outward confidence and inward terror, I set that plan in motion. My pieces were matted and framed. Step one, check. I hung them in a friend’s shop in town. I even sold a few. Steps two through five, done (I’ll spare you the tedious paperwork phase). The next phase of my plan was to launch a website for online sales. With no website creation experience, on October 14, 2017, I did what I always do. I bought a book, and I clicked the WordPress help button, repeatedly.

This was the day of my first detour. Strangely specific, you might say. I know it for a fact because that day, six years ago last week, was the first time I wrote a blog post. It was not even remotely part of the plan. However, I could not for the life of me figure out how to remove the blog page from my website. It just sat there announcing my incompetence with “BLOG POST TITLE HERE” and “CONTENT HERE”. In an uncharacteristic move, I gave up. I wrote my first post. It was short.  I wrote about the connection between taking pictures and memories of my dad. For the first few blogs, I wrote about photography. But each piece brought me closer and closer to writing about life beyond the lens of my camera.

The next detour sign appeared a month later. My oldest sister met me in San Diego to watch my daughter row. After dinner, she said some things that rerouted my whole plan. She told me that my photography was good, but I should be focusing on my writing because that was even better. She handed me her business card, on the back of which she’d written: “Flow Captivating Interesting Readable Commercial Value.” That card sits on my desk today. I enjoyed writing. But I wanted people to feel my art. I wasn’t sure anyone felt my writing the way that I did when I put the words on paper. My oldest sister made me realize that I could do with words what I was doing with images. A few months later when our father died, big emotions flew from my fingertips to the screen. I saw myself as a writer.

Six years have passed since that first sharp right turn off the plan. The often-circuitous path has led me to exceptional learning opportunities, incomparable critique partners, and a supportive writing community. I’ve written two novels—one I am querying and one I am still revising.  

I had a plan. It was a solid plan. It turns out I was the wrong plan for me. It’s a struggle at times, but I am resisting the impulse to make a new plan (and all the lovely charts that accompany a good plan). Instead, I am holding onto my goals and embracing the uncertainty of the journey. For me, the detours are the path.

Happy 6^th Birthday to the detour that started it all off, my blog!

Copyright Catherine Matthews 2023