Cross-Training

If you've been practicing and teaching your art for a while, it's helpful to occasionally become a beginner at something else. This experience refreshes the practitioner's imagination and renews the teacher's empathy.

Years ago, I heard novelist Lee Smith say to a writing workshop group: if you're new at this, I have some sense of how you feel; I just started taking a tap dance class.

Yesterday, I was a construction assistant to my brother Franc Payne, who is renovating a house in Atlantic, NC, on one of the huge sounds behind the Outer Banks.

I'd never done this kind of work before. (The only thing I ever built before was, tellingly, a lectern when I was about nine, and it was wobbly.)

I found I was pretty fair at carrying lumber in and hauling old bricks out, a bit tentative on subtracting fractions fast in my head, and quite wary of the nail gun and the electric saw.

In addition to having had a wonderful day-long visit with my brother, I return to my desk today well-exercised and with a wider view of the world...and probably more patience with the fact that in the arts we're always beginners.



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