So it is the close of another year and I have sorely neglected this blog.  Life has had a way of creating its own traffic and pulling me in directions, so many MANY directions, that I have sometimes found myself in places I never thought I'd be.  Several times I have attempted to creatively vent here, and each time it seems my mind has wandered.  These days I am engaged in a great deal of academic reading and writing and my creativity has simply had less of a license by which to present itself.

“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”  ~Kurt Vonnegut

I am concluding my year ~ and beginning the next ~ by enjoying a bit of classic literature.  I have stacks of research awaiting my perusal but I am insisting that it wait, at least for a bit.  Then, despite my aversion to New Year's resolutions, I'll move forward with what I believe to be a meaningful dissertation.  I hope it will prove bold and contributory.  My doctoral advisor is excited by the prospects and has asked, "How courageous do you want to be?"   

“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.”  ~ Coco Chanel

 
It is the last day of the year and I have amused myself by revisiting some of my long ago posts.  Sometimes the words we 'say' come from a place of yesterday, and sometimes they come from a place we no longer recognize...  I recently discovered some comments from Mr. Neil Gaiman.  With all due respect, I know very little about him other than he produces graphic novels.  Still, I found this quote noteworthy and applicable to today's reflections.

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make new mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.”

Here's to 2013, to starting over, to making new mistakes...  

Be well.  ~S.

Traveling Shoes

Yesterday it snowed.  I was at home, compliments of the school district's 'Voice of Snowdays' ~ which warned me in the wee hours of inclement weather.  The roads were clear fairly early and while transportation was no longer problematic, the windchill was something akin to a single degree.  Just a day before, the temperature was in the low 50s, and it will be so again by early next week.  Only in my neck of the Midwest!  The afternoon found me traveling to meet my best friend from high school, the one who has known me longest, the one who for years was the twin bound to me with an invisible thread.  She arrived by way of a turbulent plane ride from Bozeman, Montana.  I love this girl.  I always will...

I have been reminded of late that sometimes those we've loved the dearest never really go away, regardless of the miles between us.  At other times, those closest to us are the ones who are farthest away.  There are several personal stories attached to that sentiment, but for now I am thinking of another friend who is anticipating an unanticipated change of path:

March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life's path. 

~Khalil Gibran

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives. ~Henry David Thoreau

The path of least resistance and least trouble is a mental rut already made. It requires troublesome work to undertake the alternation of old beliefs. 

~John Dewey

Sometimes it is sweet, even humbling, to return to the yesterdays when things were simpler, less complicated.  Like in the days of teddy bears.  And too-big earphones.  With only the irritation of a flashbulb spotting your view.

xo, ~S.

ab hinc

Two months is a long time to be gone.  I've missed this blog.  It has, at times, been difficult to stifle the urge to be creative here.  And then at other times, I've completely forgotten this outlet for days and weeks on end.  Even so, I have written more than ever before in these past four months.  My mind has been occupied and my pen rarely dormant, but academia held sway over my words. 

The holidays were here and gone and I hardly noticed.  Just weeks before Christmas, my beloved grandmother passed away.  We should all have one person who knows how to bless us despite the evidence, Grandmother was that person to me. ~Phyllis Theroux  It is surreal to think that I no longer have grandparents here on earth.  It is especially difficult to see the sadness in my mother's eyes.  For now, she is lost in a routine that no longer includes the need to tend to my grandmother's care.  

 Sometimes transitions can be so sad.

On another note, I recently met up with a dear pal.  There is nothing like an unexpected text, an invitation to come out from beneath the textbooks to enjoy a bit of camaraderie, to lighten the mood.  Somehow she knew I needed just that...an escape.  How rare and wonderful is that flash of a moment when we realize we have discovered a friend. ~William Rotsler Sarah is genuine and kind.  Our connection has history.  It is one of the things I like about her.  All experience is an arch, to build upon. ~Henry B. Adams  As I reflect, I am reminded that sometimes It's luck that one thing works out and one doesn't, it's sort of happenstance. ~Richard Linklater Thank you, Sarah, for the laughter.  You always make it feel like a hug.

Sometimes transitions can be such blessings.

Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
~T.S. Eliot

xo, ~S.