In 2012, I will reach my 60th cycle on this earth. Change. My work, to which I have given my true heart, disappeared the last half of 2011. Change. My home, for which I have struggled with all my might, will be taken from me. Change. My business, to which I have given all my strength and courage, has withered away. Change. My children, to whom I have poured out all that I am, are grown and gone. Change.

Everything changes. Everything has changed. Everything is changing, changeable, changed.

Work, struggle, strength, courage, giving your all, this is a busy load. Busy-ness, I now know, is a kind of protection. You can shove a lot of life away because you are truthfully too busy. Things you don’t want to remember, things you don’t want to know, truths you don’t want to acknowledge—you can be so busy that you don’t have to deal with any of it. Of course, it is always dealing with you.

My Changed life has left me with nothing but time on my hands. Alone, lonely, lonesome. When Change = time on your hands, the busy-ness protection falls away. Everybody’s life has a story. I have spent a lifetime trying to keep my monsters at bay. I have been, mostly, able to cram them back in the box when they surge. Work, home, art, family…all require so much time and energy and serve well a desire not to remember.

I am a painter of flowers. I was born into poverty and abuse. I will leave it at this: there is no form of abuse or neglect known to children that I don’t know including the desperate hope that one day I will be good enough to be loved. I wish from the bottom of my heart that this statement wasn’t true. But it is. When I am alone with myself, undistracted and un-busy, the monster wins. It roars out of the darkness and claims me when I least expect it. It robs me of what I truly want. It imprisons me where I have spent a lifetime trying to escape. It becomes who I am. When the monster, as they say, is out of the box, I remember, acknowledge and know truth of what we were.

I am a painter of flowers. My brothers took themselves from the world when they could no longer bear up to the pain. I, too, have come close to leaving. But, I chose life. Remarkable. I chose life. And this is also my truth.

I am a painter of flowers. Leave me alone to do what I want, and I will paint flowers. I know (because they have told me) that many see this a flaw. Not deep enough. Too decorative. Too Uncomplicated. Too UN-instrospective. I have tried to stop out of some idea that, in stopping, I will become better, deeper, more. I have tried to stop out of some idea that I must if I want to be a “good” and “respected” artist. I have tried to stop out of some hope that if I can become who I am not, then I will be ok, I will be loved and acceptable.

What this time of change has really taught me is this: I must choose to accept me as I am now…today. Today, I am a survivor of abuse. I am a number on the unemployment charts. I am a player in the foreclosure story. I am a short, and too fat, and old now. But, I am also so very much more than that, much more. Truth be told, many of my good qualities were born on the road of suffering. One of these qualities is that I have learned to see the flowers.

In 2012, I will reach my 60th cycle of this earth choosing life. Change. I will find a new way of working. Change. I will find a new adult life. Change. I will find a new place to pour out my heart. Change. I will build a family of friends to love with all my heart. Change. And, I will embrace my joys and my sorrows. Change. I will embrace myself and accept me. Change.

This I will do. I will change. I will live. I will bring my childhood self out of the dark and embrace and love her. We will be ok. And, I will paint flowers, for this is who I am.

“there are flowers everywhere for those who wish to see them.” H. Matisse

I would like to say that this passage in my life has taught me the virtue of patience.  That would be a lie! I’m feeling like I have been in the starter blocks for a looonnng time.  I’m down, set, ready and waiting for go! The problem is I am just not the wait-around type.  Now, I have great patience for other folks, but when it comes to my own self—not so much!  I like to make a plan and work the plan.  I am decisive.  I go.  I don’t wait for go…until now…ugh.

Oh well.  I could rant for a while, but I have a ton of job boards that need my attention.  Maybe there is magic for me in one of those posts. Maybe?  Keep me in your prayers!

Sometime I get lost in the cycle of thinking about what has been or what once was. Sometimes I feel like so much has passed me by. Sometimes my life is not to my suiting.

It’s hard to not grieve for the days and places when you thought your life was better. I’m forced to change now, when I liked things just as they were.

BUT the ship of the past has sailed. In our family we have a saying, “You have to fish where the fish are.” It doesn’t matter if you have the best boat, the strongest pole, cutting edge bait and are known far and wide for your fishing expertise. What matters is that you fish where the fish are.

You are much more than the title on your business card. You have a bunch of hard won skills that earned you that title. Make an inventory of all the positive things you know and are and can do. Gather every skill and attribute, morph it into something new and fresh, then fish like a madman where the fish are baby!

Make forward movement. It may only be a baby step…but even a baby step into a new beginning is forward movement…and lots of baby steps strung together can get you anywhere you want to go.

They came in the mid-1600’s, traveled to Pennsylvania and then down to North Carolina where, with a land grant, they settled in the foothills in what is now Lincoln County. I have no way to comprehend the courage it took for a mother and father to load their children on a wooden boat and cross the ocean, leaving everything known and dear, forever. Yet, they did it.

They came to make a place for their future. They had a dream, and, in some far-reaching way, my existence today is a part of that dream. Their courage made the way for me.

I have a big responsibility to them. They gave me life. They gave life to my life. They made me an American. I don’t know them, and I never can. I do, however, feel them inside of me, and I am in awe of what they have done for me.

There are many Americans who have given everything for me. Nothing I can say says what I feel in my heart, especially today, the anniversary of 9/11.

We love you. We remember you. And we will never forget.

The thing is, that there is no other way to learn but to be tested and allowed to falter, strengthen and rise.

How will we ever overcome our weaknesses until they are made plain through our challenges?

How will we ever know how strong we are unless a feat of strength is required that goes way beyond any comfort zone?

Whomever it is you were born to be can only be discovered through the passages you agree to complete.  You may think you know who you are already, but no matter your age that person is only a new beginning place. There is more to know and more to become…but that will only be revealed through the passages you are willing to undertake.

When we have lost all words to describe, the heart still remembers. When we have forgotten what it looked like, the heart still remembers what it felt like.

Sometimes that doesn’t feel like much of a blessing. The heart keeps us feeling things we think we wish we could forget. And maybe that is a disadvantage of the heart, I don’t know for sure.

I do know this, though, my heart remembers the people I loved. My heart remembers the joy of my children. My heart holds my memories and therein, they live on.

Sometimes, that can be sad, but mostly the memories that live on in our hearts are a blessing to us. Oddly enough sometimes, that goes double for the remembrances that come to us with sadness.

(For my brother Kenny, born this day in 1958, who passed in 1996)

When you get all grown up, you just don’t want to baby step anymore! You want to stride and leap and move forward in great ways. It’s curious, because all of my life I have had to baby step every little thing I have learned—one word at a time or one step at a time or one day at a time. One of the hardest things to accept is that we only get anywhere one tiny little baby step at a time.

When I am lost or confused or don’t know what to do next or know what to do next but just can’t figure out how to get it done, I love the idea of baby stepping. When you baby step, you don’t have to know it all. You just have to know one small possibility that will move you towards your goal. That’s all.

There are lots of old adages that say something to the effect that every journey starts with one step. But. this thought, I think, takes it to the next level. One step at a time, you can do anything…if you just keep going on.

Think about a baby learning to walk. They will stand and fall and stand and fall and step and fall on and on until, one day, they get it. Adults just hate that. We like to spring forth able to do with competence whatever it is we are trying to get done. Or, if we feel we can’t do it, we quit before we even try. Adults are so afraid to appear inadequate or let be known that they don’t have it all together.

If we had that attitude from childhood, we would have never learned anything.

One step at a time, all things are possible. I think I said that!

I have come to understand that how I feel is not necessarily the result of what has happened in my life. It is not a reaction to the world, but a reaction to myself. It is not a confirmation of how the world is, but a confirmation of how I am.

What I feel is about me, good, bad, or ugly.  It is about the true, inside, significant me. What I manifest is about the seeds I allow to be planted in my self. I don’t have to believe everything I am told or take on the hurt and acting out of others.

I get to choose—always. Do I let every seed that flies my way grow or do I weed out the seeds that don’t belong and choke my garden? All around us there is bound to be a certain level of disharmony, illness, tragedy, anger or fear. What seed will I water? What will I nurture by focusing my attention upon it.

Every one has their stuff, and they tend to sprinkle it around—even throw it at you, sometimes. So what! It’s their stuff, not yours. Don’t take it inside.

Life is tough. Lot of stuff gets said and done. Don’t take it all on yourself. Find a way to be whole as you plough through the middle of heavy days. Be happy. Be someone you like. Be good. Be someone you admire. Be upright. Be someone you are proud to be. Nurture you own happiness.

After all…it’s all just life going on.

Why not consider what is available?

We already know this truth, but so readily forget. It is not from some great moment in the future that our joy will spring forth. It is in this moment—with all of its difficulty, all its trials and all its unbelievable blessings and beauty—that joy exists.

It really is hard to live in the day at hand. We make progress by struggling, planning and hoping for what is not yet here. It is necessary, but not the only consideration.

Plan for the future, yes, but practice mindfulness in the moment. This is the secret to being ok, peaceful and maybe even joyful right this minute. Practice mindfulness. That simply means to purposely be aware and appreciative of everything that is here right now instead of ignoring what you have today in pursuit of what you hope to have sometime in the unknown future.