Tag Archives: spirit

go with the flow

Posted on
10

Today’s Illustration Friday word is “fluid”. I did the oil painting above many years ago and I remember as I approached the canvas that day, I wanted to paint it quickly, without a lot of thought or control. I suppose you could say, I wanted it to be fluid, to come from that part of my brain that doesn’t worry about rules and shoulds, about being good enough, right or wrong. I wanted to surrender to the rhythm of the moment, to allow the smell and feel of the oil paint move with my imagination across the blank, white canvas. And I wanted to stand on that beach myself, a thousand miles from nowhere beneath a dissolving canopy of cerulean blue sky.

“I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after and changed my ideas: they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind.” ~Emily Bronte

grand fun

Posted on
16

Watched the grandkids for a few hours last Sunday and had us some much needed soul soothing fun and laughter.

See more Wordless Wednesday here!

“To become a grandparent is to enjoy one of the few pleasures in life for which the consequences have already been paid.”  ~Robert Brault

family roads

Posted on
15

My husband took this photo when were visiting my brother and sister-in-law in Louisville this past October. They live in the quintessential Kentucky home, a lovely updated farmhouse on several rolling acres at the end of a long, winding driveway. When we got to their house that afternoon, their son Evan greeted us at the door. Evan has autism. He has worked really hard, undergoing intense therapy and schooling for fifteen years now and I know the journey hasn’t been easy for the entire family. But I also know that despite the ups and downs of his challenges, the young man that opened the door that afternoon has one of the purest, gentlest souls in our family.

See other (nearly) Wordless Wednesday entrants here!

friday fun

Posted on
8

Okay, its kind of been serious around here lately, time to lighten things up! The New York Zoos and Aquarium has a fun website for kids and silly adults where you can build your own wild self. That’s me above, I have antennae so I can get me a better sense of what makes people tick, sticky froggy arms so I can hang on to the people and things I love, Tiger feet so I can stand strong and have more courage, and butterfly wings so I can fly away just in case all those other magic parts don’t work! Go build your own beautiful wild selves here! And then check out other Illustration Friday “vanity” entrants here…have a great weekend everyone:)

love rules

Posted on
17

I usually have two books going at once, one fiction and one non-fiction. Yesterday, I was scanning my bookshelf in the family room looking for something motivational/comforting/self-helpish and I spotted What Happy People Know by Dan Baker, Ph.D. I read it a few years ago, but apparently I’ve forgotten “what happy people know” because I’ve been feeling pretty blue lately. After rereading it I decided to play along with the Teaser Tuesdays Blog meme at MizB’s Should Be Reading blog. I randomly opened the book to page 94 and picked out this quote to share. “From that day on, I realized that there was something happy people know that unhappy people don’t: No matter what happens in life, there’s always something left to love, and the love that remains is always stronger than anything that goes against it.”

I like that, the idea that love rules, that the capacity of our hearts to appreciate and love unconditionally can overcome the craziness in our minds. Craziness that is almost always motivated by fear. Fear that we aren’t good enough, we aren’t loveable, fear of loss, fear that things won’t get better, fear that we are helpless to “fix” the broken pieces of our life. I think we all have to dig deep sometimes to find the courage to quiet that fear-based voice with a conscious prayer that begins and ends in gratefulness and love. My take away after reading Dr. Baker’s book again is simply this: Life is a dance and we all might be a little happier if we remember to lead with love, not fear.

my book

Posted on
29

For a long time after my mom passed away, I lost my voice and my creative juices. It wasn’t just the losing her, although I had never experienced the death of someone so close to me before, but it was also the many months that led up to that day. It was her long illness and the heartbreak and helplessness of watching her disappear before my eyes as she slowly lost her breath to COPD, and finally her life. There were other losses during that time, many other reluctant goodbyes, and it all simply emptied me out. So I set my writing life aside and tried to figure out how to process the layers of grief and regret, how to regain my emotional footing after a yearlong free-fall. Eight months ago, words started to bubble up in my head, little teases and glimpses of ideas and improvements for the book I was working on before my mom got sick. At first I ignored them. I just wasn’t interested. But eventually, I couldn’t ignore them anymore and I reread the book and began to work on it again.

And now it’s finished, and although I thought it would be published early in September, it somehow happened that September 30th was the day it was finally ready to go, which I think is pretty cool. Because it was three years ago on 9/30/08 that my mom died and it suddenly felt like I had been given the opportunity to take that date back and fill it with something joyful to honor my mom and my own creative spirit. By the end of the day on the 30th however, it didn’t look like I’d get the okay from CreateSpace in time to publish and I was pretty depressed as I got ready for bed that night. Just before midnight, I went downstairs to check my e-mail one last time and the notification was there! It felt like my own moment of ordinary magic as I sat in the dark in front of a glowing computer screen and hit the “publish” button just minutes before September 30th ended.

A blogging friend wrote this recently in a comment,  “I still miss my Mom, and she died a long, long time ago. Luckily, her spirit still inspires me.” Now, every year when September 30th rolls around, I will still think of my mom. I’ll think how lucky am I to have had her in my life for as long as I did, to have grown up in a house full of books and love, to have so many wonderful memories of my mom to inspire me as I go forward. How lucky am I? Damn lucky indeed.

If you think you’d like to take a chance on a newly minted author and read my book, the paperback is available now on Amazon and it will be coming soon to Barnes & Noble, Kindle, Nook, and iBooks:)