Making waves or at least small ripples

Aaron Paquette  also has a blog and a YA adult novel that is very good

Yesterday I was looking at Aaron Paquette's art online (each piece also has a wonderful explanation with it so click through to each piece).  I want to buy some of the prints soon but was also wishing I had enought money to buy an original.  I said this as we were making dinner and R looked at me like I was crazy.  She said "I want to be famous." 

I know there has been a lot written about fame and the relationship of the younger generation to that concept.  Her comment kind of took me off gaurd as her current goal is to be a scientist and you don't usually go into science for the fame, but it also aligned to something I have been thinking about - living up to your "potential".

I feel very concious of my potential.  Maybe because I started out with none being labelled as retarded?  If I can write, do I need to?  Is a blog good enough or does it have to be a book? How much should I volutneer and where?  How do I give back to community?  Should I take the higher level and "more important" jobs?  I have many privalages and I want to give back and I want to live up to my potential, but I am also an intervert with anxiety disorder and too much people hurts me.  I am also a mother of smaller children, sole family wage earner and house carer.  How do I find the balance in these responsibilities?  Do I deney my potential as a women for my children or does it hurt them not the see me flourish as a person?  How do I model healthy femininity?

I have been thinking about this issue for a long time, even predating claiming my Metis culture, but strangely the anwer came from an Elder that a collegue brought me along to see over lunch one day (some government departments have lodges where they bring in Elders to speak).  I don't remember his name but his story says with me.

He spoke about a young native man who wanted to be someone - to accomplish great things and who was restless in spirit.  He was a guide for european men who needed help travelling through the still "wild" america.  He was ever frustrated that he did not acheive his greateness. 

However, one of the men he guided and spoke with was Henry David Thoreau and while the native man did not know it he deeply influenced Thoreau's thinking and writing for the rest of the authour's life.  Thoreau wrote books that have been widely read and discussed for over 150 years.

That story really resonated with me as a young parent.  I tried to worry less about making a big splash and to appreciate the everyday acts of parenting as part of a larger narative.  Even if I never "live up to my potential" in traditional ways, I am trying to raise children who will be positive influences in the communities they live in and who will positively affect someone else who will affect someone else and the ripples will widen and while it is not quite so obvious all the time about the value I am giving bac,k I hope when I stand back later I won't see a lost potential but a series of little acts that made a difference.