reflection – Frozen Spaghetti

Back in March, when I was soaking in a hot tub in Palm Springs – I met LaRissa, a woman one month my senior (to the exact date, if I remember correctly) and we connected on all things spiritual. The desert mountains were snow capped, I was at ease – we ended up having a conversation not in the hot tub & over oat milk lattes before she left to go back to CO and it was for sure we were friends. Even now, knowing I want to give her a call today – I feel this complete recognition that she is meant to be a friend in this season of my life.

This season of my life…

I overwhelm myself sometimes with how much I have going at once. Constantly having to assess and say “is this aligned”, “is this life giving”, “does this feel energized and expansive”… Yet this season of my life is showing buds and starting to reveal what this next harvest of fruit might look like. That sentence reminds me of a project that came up for attention last night, a little draft I started, and the feeling of excitement I get when I want to share it with somebody – even if prematurely.

When I say “reminds me of a project that came up for attention”, I mean exactly that: I am laying in bed, I am attempting to sleep and then an idea comes up and I will just lay there and explore it in my mind. I will see it and watch it and (most importantly) feel it and some to dos, some action items, will trickle out of the time. Sometimes getting me out of bed completely…

Yesterday I had coffee with Fawn, a woman about 20 years my senior which is always a nice welcome reprieve for my psyche. I love to hear myself talk but when I am with women my senior, the fact they have a decade or more on me prompts me to listen – intently – for clues, or “crumbs” as Fawn calls them.

Fawn and I have an interesting history that starts with me picking up a black London Fog trench coat at a swap night about 6 years ago. OH MAN was I excited for the find. It was one of her contributions to the swap. That’s when I first learned her name. Since then, we cross paths at the studio and – in Feb – we got to talking about hospice. You may remember I wrote a life speech / eulogy for my friend Nancy last year and – ever since then – I have been longing to do more of those. The proximity to a person’s worldview in the later stages of their life is – again as Fawn would call it – a blessing. A humbling, fascinating blessing…

She would know because she was in fact a hospice nurse for 28 years and has written a collection of her stories. We agreed to exchange books and I took hers with me to Palm Springs. I was reading it when I met LaRissa…

Total transparency: the role of self publishing in regards to creating and marketing – the bones and the business – at the same time is challenging for me. I want help but I don’t know how to ask for it that well. I get things to states of completion and then it’s like “ok what can I communicate consistently” and before I know it, the book has been on Amazon for three months and I still don’t have a single review. Because, again, I haven’t asked. My friend Dana reminded me at lunch a month ago “your friends want to help you – we want to support you” and even now hearing that in her voice brings tears up because – well – it’s time for me to figure out how to ask for that if I want to continue pursuing life as a full time artist.

Back to Fawn. So – that whole which project wakes me up thing evolved over coffee with Fawn who, in her fluid centered sense asked me, “So when Spirit tells you what to work on…”

So when Spirit…

Spirit. :)

(Side note, @laughwithspirit is my Colorado hot tub friend’s IG handle…. and here is her website)

In my therapy these past couple of weeks, I have had major breakthroughs in regards to an understanding of capital S Self and how operating from courage, confidence and creativity isn’t a request you have to make and wait for that place to arrive – it’s you. All the time. Who you are. I told Fawn the fact I am relearning a lot of this sometimes makes me feel like what am I doing teaching yoga and she reminded me something along the lines of “yes – but to be a teacher don’t you have to be a student”. Oh gosh. The way Spirit works…

Fawn’s question reminded me that I get to partner with Spirit, not just sit around and wait. That Spirit – the Spirit that wrote A Christmas Tree Story from beginning to end – the Spirit that created the hippo and the vines of Words that Rhyme and Lullabies – the Spirit that stirs the magic of the Apple Tree… I get to connect each morning rather than wait around each night.

I get to inquire: what do we do today, Spirit? And feel the energy of that blessing.

So, today we are designing the Facebook cover event for a reading next Saturday.

We are going to start on animation for three digital shorts that have audio… ya know – audio I recorded professionally in Palm Springs.

Because I am an artist.

I am an artist.

And God help me Lord, I am getting things done.

PS Here is Fawn’s book! (Through my affiliate link, of course)

Have you seen Ellen lately? This is her back in June – perfectly packed – at ease on our BART commute to Union Square for a 46 hour stint in San Francisco.

This picture is so rich to me. And perhaps I am reflecting on her because I have been in her room doing some deep “have you really been dusting” cleaning. Her room got to the point last week that it was just time to be rearranged, re-thought, evolved.

I sit (absolutely covered in dust) with a Starburst wrapper stuck on the bottom of my bare left foot and am in awe of how I am more in love with my oldest child than ever.

As I prepare to bring a bin up to start gathering up her nursery items, her kid room items, and leave it minimal – cool – updated, I realize the extent to which she and I have a decade behind us. For the most part, I know when and where she got things. I know the sentimental value behind the items in her room from her mom: items I made her because I love the little things like her sense of time and her feet.

For example, I printed this picture of her feet (one arch folded over the other, the way they still end up when she sleeps curled up on her belly) which were soles up at me while I was driving her and her sister across the country. It was taken in our van, she was dozing in the front seat in such a way that her perfect feet were nestled next to the road atlas. I decoupaged the picture onto a little box that now stores her guitar picks.

Ellen and travel just go together. (Along with her need for sleep.)

As I round out my thirties, I realize just how much the hard parts of my life are more easily navigated when I use what comes easy to me or how they are more fun and enriching when I incorporate what I love; what “just goes with” who I am.

Likewise, I recognize the effort in the ease. I hope she learns this relationship between easy and hard things early. How the surrender and the edge work together. Yet sometimes I think she already knows on a deeper level how to let go and be in the still moments that come.

Still moments like when you are waiting for when the BART will finally take off through the painted neighborhoods, to the heart of San Francisco. A city that provides a shared pulse for me and Ellen.

San Fran gets her the same way it gets me. It is a pure kind of connection that puts a person at ease before ever having arrived.

That’s it for now. #backtocleaning #sanfrancisco