The Easy Part

The easy part was saying "yes". The hard part was getting it right -- it took me three times!

This is a really special place, though, and I think that's why. It's become my home-away-from-home, but that's not important here. It's so much bigger than that.

The College of Nursing is the place where dreams and passion walk into. They study and learn and are taught by the finest people with extraordinary purpose — leaders who are cutting new paths in nursing care on big and international levels with vision, wisdom, and the kindest, most caring hands. Lifelong careers begin here with fulfilling days and meaningful work. It's a place that nurtures a tremendous sense of pride and an urge to do more, as only nurses can do.

And then they come back ... because this is home.

It's a beautiful historic building in the heart of Charleston, South Carolina, and it's the launching point of so many nursing careers -- in practice, in research, in education, in leadership. Dr. Catherine Durham's nursing story began at MUSC, has included a lengthy side trip with the United States Navy, years of patient care both locally and abroad, teaching within these very walls, and now her new role as Dean of the College of Nursing at the Medical University of South Carolina. This is home.

There is something I have learned from drawing ... the flow is different when I have a personal attachment and when I don't. When I don't, the work seems easier than when I do. Makes some sense. Probably a good psych consult would explain it better, but it seems to take so long for my brain, my heart, and my hands to find their groove when I'm drawing something that I know so well.

And at the same time, I have learned all these years that when I draw a place that I don't know, I find myself escaping into it. I might know a little bit about it or its family, maybe just enough to get a vibe, but then my mind simply opens up to what the house is telling me. Magically it all flows and it's only one at-bat instead of three.

This was a celebratory project -- in honor of her new role -- and so easy to say yes to. And then it got hard because of all the history, and because of all the futures. Because of all the people who walk through these halls and take their dreams out into the world with a solemn pledge...

And then they come back ... because this is home.

I had to get it right.