Everyone’s version of living your best life is different. When I left college, I spent fifteen years in the circus, as a professional clown and lighting director. And sometime magician’s assistant, bally broad, coloring book butcher, candy floss spinner… I twirled a lasso. Once I ran a spotlight. As a clown, I’ve played a taco vendor, a patient at the dentist, the victim of a tragic incident involving a trash compactor, a jockey riding a stick horse, a cop who loses her pants, a photographer, a nurse, and Bill Clinton.
I had this gag I created all by myself where I had this huge takeout box of Chinese food that said Peking Duck on it and up from the box pops this duck and it’s peeking and that means it’s a peeking duck and…
Never mind.
Truth is, I was not a great clown. Or lighting director. And trekking town to town and sleeping in a van, at least for me, wasn’t best life material.
Recently, it’s occurred to me that, more than a decade away from my time on the road, I’m finally living that best life thing, and it’s all about books. As a freelance book cover designer and staff designer for Portland publisher Forest Avenue Press, I get to create covers, and sometimes interiors, for loads of lovely books. I write essays and stories and sometimes those get to live in other lovely books. I’m in two different writing groups and am a member of a huge, wonderful writing community in Portland, Oregon. In my day job as a Marketing Coordinator for Powell’s Books, I get to sell… books. I’ve had the honor of being able to edit two books, one with my husband, fine artist Stephen O’Donnell. In my free time, I’m working on a novel and a children’s picture book, and occasionally I even have time to read books.
It finally feels like I’ve found the kind of life that’s meant to be mine, and for that I feel incredibly blessed.
I also eat a lot of cheese.
I can be contacted at gigiblittle@yahoo.com.