I thought I could skip over feeling [anything] about 9/11.

Justified enough time had passed, nothing impacted me significantly : except everything subtly.

Obviously it is always a date that stood out :

One year we flew home from living in Germany for 6 months. One year I hoped that our third baby did not decide to be born on that date. This year I went to the eye doctor.

I believed all it is now is a date in history. Next chapter. Shut down any feelings. In the past, move on…

Then a few days later I got in the bath and listened to Bruce Springsteen’s The Rising album and bawled. Transported to that time as a sophomore in high school just north of NYC. To all that was lost and would never be found again, to the tremendous courage and fear and confusion and unity that emerged.

Now 19 years later smoke and ashes brew on the opposite coast. And every consequent event seems so catastrophic. I wonder is this unique to this time we are living? Was there a time where things were peaceful and secure, where that was guaranteed?

While I am personally safe, or perceive to be : I feel so deeply the tragedy sweeping through this world : like an untamed fire blazing to clear a new way. I pray to find a way to transmute my tears into a healing salve I can offer.

I don’t claim to be an activist. I wish I was. Although, I do believe in change, equality, and justice for all. So maybe I’m just a quiet one, who makes art to process it all and finds beauty not as distraction, but as a medicine that permeates deep, where not much else can reach.

Here I sit eyes wide open, heart wide open : even though it is so easy and tempting to close both.

Is poetic, multifaceted, and deeply messy.

My artist’s life is oriented to what is life giving, what is life affirming.

My artist’s life is spacious. There is time for stillness. I slow intentionally to notice my surroundings, for I know within the presence is the gold.

My artist’s life is forgiving.

My artist’s life is feminine, divine, and sourced.

My artist’s life is continuously emerging, and has the ability to coax beauty from the heartache and the tangles of life.

My artist’s life is as wide is at is deep, as solid as it is pliable.

My artist’s life is a healing, a growing, a transmuting.

My artist’s life is rich. My intention is alive, my being is embodied.

My artist’s life is the recovery of my heart, and all that resides within.

My artist’s life celebrates all, and grieves all.

My artist’s life is being all of who I am, everywhere I go : integrated.

I welcome you, but I also cringe slightly at your arrival : because with it you have brought cooler temperatures that reminds us fall is near. The idle days of summer have vanished and the rhythm of new beginnings here again.

The changing of seasons and the passing of time is a given, it has been the only constant I have experienced and yet it still takes me by surprise.

I find myself mourning summer – even though I was very tightly wound at times… Still, as it slowly dissolves, it feels like a loss.

Through the absence of what no longer is, I feel the accumulation of the absence of so many other things in my life. Things that were once there, and now no longer.

I realize this is a privilege to have only to mourn this, and not the injustice too many battle daily. While the world is upside down, my world is still recognizable. I still feel the ripple of grief in all its forms : about a season changing : which is natural and practiced, and everything else going on that is new and not so new…

All of it is the visual representation and the visceral feeling of time passing.

What can I do but notice, and tenderly witness what was? As I do so, my arms will be open wide again. Embracing a space that seems / feels like a void. A space waiting to be filled with new stories. September 2020 stories. Similar to past Septembers, yet completely unique to oneself. Allowing memories that I will be mourning when fall gives way to winter.

What if I valued myself through my compassion, reverence, patience, and courage to keep my heart open?

What if I valued my capacity to connect with source, myself, or even my willingness to try?

What if I valued myself for the space I let be, bowing to it, rather than being so quick to fill it?

What if I valued myself based on the size of my heart, rather than the amount of money I generate?

What if I valued myself on the kind of woman I am, rather than the kind of work / career I build for myself?

What if I valued myself on my thoughtfulness, rather than all the things I don’t seem to know?

What if?

I will.

I value myself for my tremendous ability to feel and heal, to transmute, to create, to drip with love and satisfaction simply because I am.

Can I open myself all the way to myself, to others? To receive all aspects of me and then receive depths of love.

Like a flower, I will always be opening.

Here.

For you, for all of you.

There is always enough space, as you climb and are lifted into the canopy.

There is plenty of space for you to rest and to bloom.

Protected and safe.

There is so much to say.

My ears and heart are opening even wider.

I listen and take it in. I integrate to become integrated.