Predictable, Rebellious or Not Bothered?
My author’s copy of Rewilding Yourself arrived the other day.
I opened it and the first thing I noticed was the text alignment — slightly off center, sitting a little low. Ugh. Must redo.
Then I paused … and looked again. Do I?
There’s a natural curve to how the text laid on the page. And I thought — I could call this a design choice. A reminder that life isn’t always neat and orderly. Although I doubt anyone would ask me.
So I did what any reasonable author does. I sent it to my advance readers for their first hit.
The responses made me smile …
Some love alignment and wanted it straightened. Predictable and safe, perhaps.
Some loved the quirky off-center flow — a little rebellious, a little unexpected.
And some didn’t even notice at first glance. The bigger picture people.
And then there’s the ‘let me think about this’ forever person, which could have been me, the author. But I’m not counting that one. Authors are a special category of over thinkers entirely.
Three primary responses. Four ways of moving through the world.
Which brought me to painting — because many things do. The style I work in tends to reflect my life in the moment. When I’m in the messy middle of a piece, who am I being? Someone at ease with the uncertainty, trusting it will resolve? Someone who wants to trash it and walk away? Someone waiting for another person to fix it? Always my choice, of course.
I have a pair of Navajo earrings intentionally left just a little bit undone — open, unfinished, energy still moving through them. Not quite closed. Not quite resolved. Alive because of it. Art is like that. So is life.
I sat with all of it for a while. The curve. The rebellion. The earrings. The readers who loved it crooked.
And the desire to not distract from the image by getting caught up in a formatting error .. er, uh, design feature.
I decided to fix change it.
Not because perfection matters. Not because I need to fit neatly into industry expectations. But because I love the cover — that face, those colors, the words curving along her cheek — and I didn’t want anything pulling attention away from her. She deserves a clean frame.
The inquiry itself was the point. Noticing my first reaction. Questioning it. Sitting with the alternatives. Choosing consciously rather than defaulting.
There’s a concept I keep returning to — Microcosm of the Macrocosm. The idea that the small moments in our lives mirror the larger patterns of how we move through the world. How we respond to the little things reveals everything about how we meet the big ones.
That's also the rewilding journey distilled into one crooked text line — the practice of meeting yourself honestly in the small moments and learning how to navigate them so the larger ones don't catch you off guard.
I’m still smiling about it.
Rewilding Yourself is available for pre-order now — text freshly centered for delivery this fall.
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