to say the year has started out with a bang and a wobble is probably an understatement...so many core beliefs i held were tested to their breaking point...no surprise, my physical health suffered, with pneumonia & bronchitis lasting months, flattening me and taking away any energy for inspiration or stamina in the studio. just as i was ready to throw away my brushes and gel medium, a spark was lit once again. more like a bonfire. and i've been painting in a style i've never done before, with results that i'm actually pleased about. Necklace orders and re-orders have been coming in steady for the new Squam 2012 designs (keeping it simple) and my studio is humming with enthusiasm once again. now to keep up! I have a few shows coming up, and some artwork to be published! But in the midst of this, a shaking of friendships and connections...ones that i thought were solid, heart attachments showed themselves to be so much sugar that melted with the damp snow...others surprised me - my mistaking their quiet, gentleness for "acquaintance," when the connection was deeper, but less in need of a constant communication...one of those Golden Tethers. Priorities were recalibrated...boundaries reset...a deep look inside to help the sorting...and when i thought every possible stone had been lifted, and the squishy things revealed, another Something would slam into me. there was always one constant in my life that i could depend on for respite, and when that was removed, it set off yet another chain of ugly emotions and reactions that i didn't know existed inside me. and you know, there's no moving forward with those kind of screaming toddlers clinging to your ankles. so it has been a tiring and tense 6 months, as i alternately tried to run from the issues, and stand & clear them. and finally, on this first day of March (already??) i can say that a sense of peace & direction has finally returned...would i wish to go through all that again? no possible way. but the result was worth the mess. much like my studio these days. i have to say, that up until last night, there remained some dangling threads to the tapestry. but last night i received the news that a woman who has been a dear dear light in my life was given a devastating medical diagnosis, followed by the doctors telling her there was "no hope" for treatment. i cannot fathom what her heart and mind and body are going through. i simply cannot wrap my head around it. and my feelings are not even in this bigger equation. she made the announcement to her facebook family last night, after spending the day with the news. she has decided that she will live her life to the fullest with whatever time has been allotted her. we all know there's no such thing as "no hope." and that a no-hope diagnosis is not always what God has intended, so He ignores the doctors. but it shifted reality. for all of those people she's touched. it shifted. in ways that focused on her, and in ways that made us focus on others in our lives. and suddenly it seemed easier to just cut those dangling threads and be done with all the minutiae of emotional scorekeeping and personal development and worries in general...cut them rather then spend eternity sorting out this and that, only to realize 5 years, 10 years have gone by and now there's little time left. those dangling little threads can choke you, for certain. they can wrap around you and keep you in place forever. To quote a very Wise woman, "You'll never figure this shit out, so just move forward." and with my new purple suede boots, that is exactly what i will do.