"When you come to a fork in the road ... take it."

Yogi Berra (not to be confused with Yogi Bear) was the longtime catcher for the New York

Yankees back in the day. But he was also known for something besides his baseball prowess -- and that's the amazing pearls of wisdom he came up with. He coined such phrases as "I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous," and "It ain't over 'til it's over." He also said, "When you come to the fork in the road, take it."

Yogi Berra

Though that bit of advice might seem silly, it actually makes a lot of sense. Think about it. Life is a series of choices. We all come to many forks in the road during a lifetime. How our lives unfold is dependent on each fork we choose, because each choice leads to another fork and another and another after that. Depending on which fork we choose each time, the selection of future choices is altered ... and subsequently, so are our lives.

When my son graduated from high school, I remember watching the students take to the stage in their caps and gowns to receive their diplomas. As each name was called, the graduate's aspirations were announced to the audience. Many planned to be doctors, nurses, firefighters, teachers, dentists, journalists, lawyers, and bankers. No surprises there. It was the young man who wanted to lay pipe for a big gas pipeline project that caught my attention.

Certainly there are lots of people who have that job, but I had never heard of someone making that a career choice. And it got me thinking. The people who do the makeup for corpses (aka - mortuary cosmetologists) probably didn't set out to make that their life's work either. Nor did garbage collectors/sanitary engineers.

When it comes right down to it, I suspect most of us don't end up sticking to our original career paths. When I was six, I intended to be a nurse (I liked the hats they wore), but I quickly realized I didn't like being around sick people, so nursing didn't seem like the smartest choice. At twelve, my father taught me how to use a scale ruler, and armed with a list of drafting design regulations, I set about designing houses. It was the best fun, and I was soon determined that I was going to be an architect when I grew up. I'm not sure why, but at 16, the plan changed again, and my love of interior design replaced my desire to draw house plans. Then graduation arrived, and it was actually time to choose something.

Though I still wanted to be an interior designer, no programs were offered where I lived. I would have to go to Washington State or Calgary, and my parents couldn't afford to send me to either. Disappointed and weary of the academic life, I decided to become a bank teller until something else came along. My parents nixed that plan. I was going to university whether I wanted to or not. At 18, I didn't consider defying my parents (Heck, I could end up homeless!), so I decided to follow in my sister's footsteps and become a teacher.

It wasn't a career I'd ever aspired to, but at that point I didn't feel like I had much choice. That was a big fork in the road. I was a teacher for 21 years. There were parts of it that I liked, but there were also parts that just about killed me, and I finally burned out.

Now what? I was too young and unrich to retire.

Well, as luck would have it, the year before my burnout, my daughter suggested I send a story I was writing (I have been in love with pencil and paper my whole life) to a publisher. (Aha -- another fork in the road!) So I took her suggestion. What did I have to lose? (Those kinds of forks in the road are painless. Unfortunately, there aren't enough of them.) Anyway, four months later, I was asked to send in the complete manuscript. That became my first published book. It even won an award!

So when I burned out, I transitioned from a regular-paycheque teacher to a tighten-your-belt author.

That was 28 years and 30 published books ago.

At nearly 74-years-old, I would have thought my career forks in the road would be just about finished. (I mean most people my age are retired for goodness sake!) But apparently not. Next fork -- an email from an editor. "Kristin, how would you like to illustrate a picture book?"

It was like Yogi Berra was whispering in my ear. "When you come to the fork in the road, take it." And before I could talk myself out of it, I accepted the offer. Now I get to add illustrator to my resume.

It has meant learning the whole book illustration process. I've just had my rough sketches edited, and so it's back to the drawing board -- but with encouragement. (This editor is a wonderful hand-holder.) It has also meant investing in an iPad and software so that I can master digital art, since that's the format the book designer wants my illustrations in. Gulp! Talk about a giant learning curve. But I'm making headway. Just today, the designer and editor accepted one of my finished illustrations. For obvious reasons, I can't share it with you, but I can share a few practice pieces I did from watching online tutorials. Let's hear it for YouTube and all the great people who share their knowledge through videos.

So here's what I'm thinking ... we can plan as much as we like, but it's the forks in the road which pop up along the way that determine the course of our journey. Like John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

And that's not necessarily a bad thing. I remember a grade 5 boy at a book presentation I was giving several years ago. I always leave time for questions at the end of a talk, and this young man put up his hand. Normally kids ask things like, "Where do you get your ideas?" or "How long does it take to write a book?" and other things of that ilk. But this boy asked me a question I'd never been asked before.

"What is your biggest regret?" he said.

Well, that stopped me in my tracks for a few seconds. I can't lie. But then I pulled myself together and replied, "I don't have any regrets. That doesn't mean that everything in my life has been wonderful. It hasn't been. In fact, I've gone through a few really tough times. BUT ... at this point I quite like my life, and I have a feeling I had to go through those rough patches to get to this happy place. So, no, I have no regrets."

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost