This evening I went for a walk and ran into my friend Ralph. Ralph’s a local artist, and his work is all over Fort Smith. If you live here, you’ve probably seen it. The huge mural at the entrance of Mercy Hospital–that’s Ralph’s work. The signs for St. Luke’s Lutheran Church and Hannah Oil and Gas–those are Ralph’s work. The sundial on the campus of the University of Arkansas Fort Smith–again–Ralph’s work, as are the marble floor depicting the inner workings of a motor in the Baldor Building and the glass sculptures that hang from the ceiling in the Health Sciences Building. The list goes on.

Six years ago, when I first started working for Do South Magazine in Fort Smith and was published for the very first time, my first article was about Ralph. He’s one of those people who never fails to inspire. He’s worked in the creative arts for so long, he’s become this fountain of knowledge and ideas that never seems to stop flowing. Plus, he has a terrific sense of humor and looks like Santa Claus. What’s not to love? Lucky for me, he lives right around the corner from my parents.

As Ralph and I were catching up tonight, I told him that I was in a transitional period in my life. He said that sometimes you have to “get off the merry-go-round,” step back, and take another look at things. I told him I thought that was the perfect phrase, get off the merry-go-round. Ralph said, “Yeah, I mean, we’re all on one.” (Right?) He said that as an artist, it’s easy to get stuck, so you have to seek out new perspectives, maybe take the painting (or life) you’re working on and turn it upside down.

I told Ralph that I recently made a special trip to the university campus to look at the sundial he made. Sundials, and the fact that most of them have a saying related to time on them, are talked about in the S-Town Podcast, so I wanted to check one out. Ralph said that although several things on the campus faced magnetic north, the sundial was the only thing that faced true north. (I’m not ashamed to say that I just had to Google the difference. And if you don’t know either, true north refers to the imaginary line that stretches into the sky and represents the earth’s axis, that center the earth revolves around. Magnetic north is the thing your compass points to.) Ralph said that in order for sundials to work, they have to face true north, not magnetic north. He also said that the sundial at the university weighs six thousand pounds and has a time capsule inside of it.

How cool is that?

I know that things haven’t always been easy for Ralph. Making a living as an artist in Fort Smith, Arkansas, is, I’m sure, challenging at times. But somehow Ralph has managed to do something he loves and make it work, and the community is better and more beautiful because of it. Ralph said that sometimes you wonder if people notice, but they do. And even when they don’t, I think, the true artist continues.

Ralph said that when the day’s over, you want to be able to say to yourself, “Today was a good day. I did something that brought me joy.” So it’s worth it, he said, to find your true north.

As Ralph and I said goodbye and I went back to my walk, I started thinking about how cool it was to run into him, about the fact that it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t gone to the bathroom one more time before I left the house. And it’s not like I was having a terrible day and Ralph turned it around, but sometimes my therapist says that the universe sends us signals, little incidents that let us know we’re on the right path. Personally, I know that lately it’s felt like I’m walking around blindfolded, so it helps me to think of happy accidents like running into Ralph as God’s way of saying, “You’re getting warmer. Keep doing what you love.”

There’s a principle in talk therapy that a therapist’s job isn’t necessarily to dole out advice. Rather, they provide a quiet and safe place for the client to talk and, maybe for the first time, actually hear themselves. I guess the idea is that we all have inner wisdom. We all know what’s best for us. We all have our true north. But oftentimes our lives are so hectic, so chaotic, and so loud, that we can’t hear ourselves, and it’s easy to step off the path. But therapy can be a way to return, a step in the right direction. Likewise, so can meditation or art, anything that invites getting still, stepping back, and seeing things in a new way.

Personally, I think my therapist has been like a sundial for me. When things have been really hard, when I’ve called her on the phone crying, she’s said, “I’m your rock.” And it’s not that she’s perfect. She’d be the first to say she’s not. But, like a sundial, she’s lined up and she’s solid. She’s not going anywhere. And whereas she’s not going to get caught up in my drama, she is going to show compassion, and she is going to reflect the truth back to me.

Most of this evening, I’ve been thinking that my talk with Ralph was mostly about creativity, about how I recently got off the merry-go-round that’s been my life for over ten years and now I’m taking a new look at things. But as I think about it in this moment, I think I started getting off the merry-go-round a few years ago when I started therapy. Since then, there’s been consistently less drama in my life, and my perspective has changed dramatically. Truly, like one of Ralph’s paintings, my life has been turned upside down in the best way. Everything looks different than it did before.

Of course, my therapist gets a ton of the credit, but I think my progress has been largely the result of becoming more authentic. When you’re trying to be authentic, the path you’re on is the right one because being authentic is the path. Being authentic is true north. Line yourself up with that. And sure, there will be times when the sun shines brightly upon your face, and others when the seasons will change and you’ll be left in the shadows. But guaranteed, you’ll be facing the right direction, and that’s what matters. And there you will stand off the merry-go-round–like a sundial that is steady and strong–giving no more thought to a sun’s setting than to its rising. After all, that is the way of all time.