wishing all of you love and light this christmas season and throughout the year

even when we are stripped bare,
life emerges.

happy hauntings all!

P
is for pumpkins
three in a row.

Q
is for quiet
teaching my soul to grow.

the only thing constant is change

there are days when walking is the best way to get where you're going.
and days when only a car will do.
sometimes we need a plane to get there,
or a boat,
or a train.
but
the days that you take a bike to get where you're going....?
those are the days that you remember the most.

i don't have time,
time has me.
although i sometimes run from it,
it finds me anyway.
and if i go purposely looking for it,
i can only find it in the most unlikely places.

i struggle to fit in,
and yet,
i struggle to stand out.
i'm not sure which the answer is,
but maybe,
it lies
in the struggle
itself?

whenever i leave,
it's in the hopes that i'll return to a better me.


i will be away for about 2 weeks
and i wish you all well. ox

my very talented sister in law and i collaborated on a project to honor our mother in law when she passed away in march. the poem was written by joan hanna and i had the honor of illustrating it. please check out her amazing writing here

honored to be interviewed here

to those......
those incredible women out there
who care willingly,
joyfully,
who multi-task efficiently,
and let go bravely,
mentor carefully,
laugh heartily,
listen intently,
love fiercely,
who settle squabbles peacefully,
run errands constantly,
rock their babes tenderly,
wipe noses endlessly,
shuttle service tirelessly,
hug tightly,
they worry deeply,
and question themselves daily,
but they mother incredibly,
to
the sisterhood of women out there
we call mom


gratefully.

the older we get, the more we yearn to touch our beginnings. to remind ourselves of the roots from which we grew......................... deep thanks to all of you for your prayers and beautiful support. ox

the path of my beginnings started with friends. and i carried those friends with me throughout my high school and college days. i said goodbye to one of those friends today. and as i walked around the room, i watched the many intersections of the paths of her life come together in the form of the people she had loved, in her work as a nurse, in her church family and in the love of her husband and children left numb by the suddeness of her death. all those paths reflected in the people who gathered to remember her..... their own intersections written on their faces, embraced in their hearts, and grown richer through her love. i was lucky enough to be one of those people in her path..... one of those many, many intersections in her remarkable life. and as i looked through the many pictures that were laid out on the tables, i found my own path affirmed once more as i found those goofy, smiling pictures of us when we were young, with ridiculous 80's hair and wide open eyes....... when we never knew that the intersection of our paths would forever be the foundation for every future relationship we would build from that point on........ affirming my path, whatever that might be, but walking it with one less friend.

does this leash make me look fat?

grief never fills you completely up,
although it sometimes feels
that
way.
there is always some space
left
for beauty
and laughter.

acceptance.
it's what we always think we need to strive towards.....
that we can somehow attain it if we just try hard enough....
that a certain amount of space and time will yield us this magical
assent.

when honestly,
sometimes all we can really expect of ourselves is resolution at best.

and i think that's okay.

the things i have come away with lately have more to do with departure
and less on arrival.
more to do with taking risks,
and less on survival.

i believe that when we take in the energy of a place
and breathe it into our souls,
that a part of our own energy lingers there
long after we're gone

i think i've finally realized
that what it might be all about
is trying to run a course of direction through the space of life
without running off the road trying to read the map

the thing about time is that even when we try so very hard
to contain it,
it always slips through the cracks that we didn't see-
didn't account for
and had no way of knowing even existed
as
it washes over us every minute of the day and erodes us
like water over stones...
etching us into things that we never saw before-
didn't account for
and had no way of knowing even could
exist.

it's never long that winter falls from grace before
it redeems itself again in the most
profound way.

i wish i had known
that i didn't know what i thought i knew
so i at least would know something.