you can’t imagine the restraint it’s taken in just the last week to not post a dozen photos of waves and water…i’m SO taken with the chance to be at the edge of a continent and feel the wind before it’s slowed down by trees and buildings.

while in oregon the weather was AWFUL and I didn’t care – there was a hurricane, hail, downpours (lots of them) and nothing could wipe the smile off my face from being in a favorite spot.

i’m back and feeling so good.  more alive.  more aware of purpose with my work.  and utterly grateful on a cellular level.

at church we have a really thoughtful sunday school teacher, thomas, and a few weeks ago he shared the top 5 regrets of the dying written by a hospice worker who had counseled thousands as they passed away……

one of them was the regret of not allowing themselves to be happy.  and a few weeks from taking their last breath they realized it.  something clicked.

…that happiness is there but it’s us that keep ourselves from accessing it like a heavy jar on a too high shelf.

i’m hoping that you’ll pull up a step stool with me this year so we can relish every bit of it.  that it can wash over us like those bioluminescent organisms i want to swim with (obvious conversation tangent alert!) and enjoy it deeply.

so, while learning might by easily won, wisdom rarely is.

at the workshop in oregon, i had the most luminous moment when something clicked in the deepest place where all truth resides.

the group was critiquing my work and that’s something i’m comfortable with after time in art school.

i was loving the chance to see each person’s images because it was then that i felt like i knew them – because photos can’t help but be autobiographical.

and when i saw mine, i realized that the the word that struck me was ‘alive’…my favorite images had that in common.  and i realized in that moment it was because i was so truly grateful to be alive.  it had never hit me before.  i hadn’t seen what was right in front of me.

i don’t often speak of certain circumstances in my life but two came close to claiming my life as i know it…and let me tell you, that flips a switch.

you know how you might behave differently if you only knew you had 2 months to live?  well, i seem to be in that state perpetually…I’m keenly aware that life on this planet is finite.

so i keep it simple.

and i scoot up the stool and open the jar.

and can’t help but marvel.

let’s do it together.