The other night

We were leaving a party around dusk the other night, when we looked up and noticed that the sky was putting on quite a showy sunset.

To get a better view we walked the two blocks to the beach.

Where we stayed until the colors softened,

into a pink rosy glow that seemed to engulf us all in quiet,

until the moon rose over the dark sea.

Crossroads

This summer I feel like I've been unusually quiet here on my blog, and not for lack of things to write about. No, there have been lots of adventures to write about, but probably more quiet times than I can remember in quite a while too. More times where I've felt that I needed to be more the hermit than the extrovert, more times where I have needed to simply sit and digest.
In fact, after leaving our life in NYC, leaving our whole life there and moving here, I think that one of the hardest things for me to get used to was the quiet. Once we settled in at the beginning of this summer, I don't think our home phone rang for months. Almost everyone that we knew, or could run into, lived far away, and so began a long summer of learning how to live in Charleston. It has been fantastic in so many ways, Frank has loved this new beginning, the kids have been thrilled to make new friends, and I have been drinking in the natural beauty and sunshine that we are surrounded by here in our new life.
The hardest thing for me is just feeling so constantly "out of my skin", I keep looking for a comfortable place, like a dog turning around and around to find the perfect spot to settle in.

And suddenly, without warning, I feel like I am at a bit of a crossroads. I can't even pinpoint the day but recently I noticed that I no longer feel so uncomfortable. Inside I feel myself relaxing, places that were tense are easing up.

All summer long I have taken a break from making my work, in past times of great stress I know that I have been unable to paint, so I knew that would happen this time as well. I prepared myself for this break. During my flurry of new paintings this spring and as I was packing up my studio I wondered how long the break would be. We moved and then settled into this time of integration. All summer I've felt myself processing, integrating the new and old, the leaving and the meeting, opening up and debriefing in a beautiful stillness. All while looking forward to beginning to work again, and finally, yes finally, I feel my creative process slowly coming on again.....I've begun envisioning paintings, ideas are germinating. I can't tell you how good it feels!

During this summer of stillness Danielle LaPorte's post on productive rest came at the perfect resonant time for me. The quiet, in between, times are still ones that I struggle with, but after this summer I feel more familiar with those places inside myself, more able to sit and be calm with them.

Joy

On my birthday I always become reflective, and this year, as I celebrated my 37th trip around the sun my reflections felt so joyful. Yes joyful, even though my computer decided to freak out on my birthday, and there always seem to be a hundred reasons to feel annoyed or pulled in too many directions or distracted or worried. I felt JOYFUL, and oh so deeply full of gratitude, for being where I am, having what I have, and the dear souls that surround me. How can it even be expressed in words really. I have everything that I have ever wanted, already, holding it in my hands.

Oh, and I am loving this song by Joshua Radin and the video that goes with it, it feels yes, so joyful!

Thoughts on Bravery and Mindfulness

Frank and I are just about to finish up our second e-course that we've taken as a couple, both classes have been part of the Together series, taught by the amazing team of couple Marisa and Sean at Creative Thursday.
The most recent class was about living your dreams: being it, living it, doing it! My mind has been full of lots of exciting ideas since Friday, when I listened to their podcast on how it feels to get back to your normal life after a dream fulfilling experience, and how that bravery and confidence from living your dream can build into a momentum that carries through into your day-to-day life. Have you experienced this? I know that the momentum of living my dreams feels so powerful, especially as the confidence that comes with living your intent builds and builds. In fact, I listened to this class while in the studio painting, so my mind was wide open. Hearing all of the talk about this bravery idea had me agreeing and thinking about how brave I feel when I am living so true to what I want to do. So much so that when I went out to get a coffee later that day I was really feeling brave, and I walked right into a boutique that I had been meaning to approach for a while to see if they would be interested in carrying my wood mounted prints. I was nervous, but excited too, and they loved my work and now they are carrying it, which of course has given me more confidence and new ideas about other things that I could do!

Being a person who chooses to live in a certain flow in my life, I KNOW that I am always most alive, most stimulated and creative when I am living from a place of noticing the new. This works for me within my routine as I am always trying to push myself to be aware of the beauty and details of my day-to-day. 
Two things that have really pushed me to do this are having my kids, and blogging almost daily. The kids help me to do it because there just seem to be so many exciting moments that we share, where I find myself stepping outside of myself and seeing the magic of it all....and almost daily blogging has helped me to develop a practice of trying to harness the details of those moments so that I can distill and share them on my blog. Blogging has been a great tool for this for me, and I would love to hear your thought about blogging helping you to live more fully in this way to.
I take lots of photographs, for my blog and my family, and this practice of photographing my "everyday" has been a great tool for me to step outside of my usual way of seeing things, to break through that mind-numbing routine or muscle memory. I definitely recognize the huge challenge of maintaining the vision of the "newness" within everyday life. My art has always flowed best from this place of noticing details, and living in the "newness" of awareness so I have spent years cultivating ample space for that frame of mind. Nothing shakes it up like traveling, being out of my usual space and place, and I absolutely love getting back from being away for a while and experiencing that feeling of awareness within my familiar surroundings. For me it is best described as feeling like I have my vacation attitude while being at home. In this frame of mind even going to the grocery store can take on the feeling of an adventure. Usually when I get back this can last for me for about a week and then I feel my mind settling down and snuggling in to my old routine so more tools are needed to keep it going.

I know that we all could stand to live with a little more of this bravery in our day to day, what do you think? I know that when my shell is cracked open, newness comes in and my vision expands, there is nothing like seeing everything with new light.