“I live my life between my ears.”
Tara Ann Lesko
In sixth grade Mind Key writer Tara Ann Lesko’s elementary school librarian asked the class to write a story based off a picture prompt of a dove that looked like it was flying off the page. What ensued was a story about a motherless girl who watched the doves on her wallpaper disappear one by one, until one day she saw them flying outside her window.
Tara’s story brought her teacher to tears.
“[Writing has] been who I am ever since,” Tara said. “It’s defining of who I am.”
A teacher and tutor of English, Tara admits that she was a writer first and last. “My identity is comprised of poetry and prose,” Tara said.
This is what she loves to do, and she is good at it. She delves into her interest through creative non-fiction and essays, and her poetry has been published in literary magazines. Tara also expresses her creative talents in drawing, painting, collage, jewelry making, photography and outdoor pursuits such as biking, all of which she says makes life more fulfilling than watching TV.
“I have known since childhood that I needed and wanted an unordinary existence,” Tara said. “I knew I would never escape the mundaneness of life, but I always knew I wanted something bigger and better than the usual school-work-sleep routine.”
Most of Tara’s evenings are spent completing work she’s taken home. She also teaches college classes at night. To her being connected is more about disconnecting from the day-to-day grind, and the arts are her way of doing that.
“When I am not working, I do everything in my power to wrap my life around art, music, and literature,” Tara said. “Those outlets for disconnection are what helps me reconnect to what identifies me, beyond what I do for a living.”
Although she identifies herself as a spiritual person, Tara makes it clear that her sense of spiritual connection through organized religion has been minimal. She has identified herself as Christian, but without becoming baptized or “born again.” Instead she is compelled by more metaphysical incarnations of spirituality, like chakra healing, crystals, meditation, yoga, angels, and oracles to name a few.
“For me, spirituality is something I have never seen as a concrete thing although Lord knows I have tried to solidly connect to a higher power… I believe in a God. I have faith in him or her and pray my thanks and my requests, certainly not as often as I should…. My mind is open, but too open to identify [spirituality] as any one thing.”
For Tara writing combines her creative endeavors with her spiritual beliefs, as is clearly seen in her memoir in progress: “The Golden Skillet,” a story about how food shapes our experiences and our perspective.
“I am someone who continues to battle with depression, anxiety, and panic attacks despite the positive turns I have taken in recent years,” Tara said. “Spirituality and creativity are necessary for me to stay balanced, focused, and breathing.”
Stay tuned this weekend as we share more about Tara Ann Lesko. She is one of Mind Key’s authors, the winner of April’s “Minute Novel” contest, and her work will be featured in
"The Mind Key Project: An Anthology," publishing this June. Her writings can be found on Mind Key's blog as well as linked to at
www.mindkey.me/tara.
We will be sharing more of her art, as well as her book her on the blog over the next two days.
