1.29.22 Creating a Mental Studio

Hello Creative Daydreamers …

I know you’re out there! I refuse to believe it is just me creating imagined places that inspire me to make more meaning out of my day-to-day. I came across a fantastic quote by Elsie de Wolfe, “I’m going to make everything around me beautiful – that will be my life.” Isn’t that fantastic? What if we committed to that one promise, that whatever we made or did we intentionally tried to make beautiful? Even our thoughts! I think it’s a game changer.

I know there are so many times in a given day when I am reduced to waiting in a carline, or folding laundry, or minutes away from a meeting, and I find myself drifting to a mental studio … a place I invented where I am instantly at home with my creative-self. The piece I wrote about it, “Creating a Mental Studio,” was recently published on Somerset Place, the official Blog of Stampington & Company (the parent of Bella Grace Magazine). I do SO hope you will check it out and tell me … what does your mental studio look like? Can I visit it with you!?!

1.25.22 Ever. Busy. Mind.

My mind

is a busy place

where quiet can only be found

if it’s noisy enough around me

to lessen the hum

the whir

the “listen to me, I have something to say”

thoughts

that never

still

Connections and interruptions

like radio frequencies frequently

on repeat

hiccuping fears

or prayers

or memories

or some combination of each

It is bright

and curious

a wandering, wondering culmination of

what-to-do-next

and

wish-I-had-time-to ideas

fragmented like mismatched quilt squares

ready to be somehow someday stitched together in a way that makes sense

in a way that tells a “less” disjointed story

…

Until then, I suppose my thoughts

noisy as they are will keep me company

in my chaos-meets-creativity

daydream-meets-divinity

Ever. Busy. Mind.

1/10/22 Does She Know?

This poem is for all of the women in my life who make it a little easier to breathe … to laugh … to cry … to be myself. If you’re wondering if you are one of the exquisite souls who inspired it – you are.

Does she know?

 . . .

She is a wonder

an apothecary of magic

weaving words that draw

and settle

and heal 

places of your spirit 

you didn’t even know were raw

until her brilliant stardust of diction

falls into the cracks

mixing with molten hope until 

you become, once more,

a priceless paragon 

liquid gold filling you … 

making you stronger than you ever were

before you realized you were broken

She is not afraid of scars

but welcomes them in … 

tracing their storylines –

drawing silver strands forth 

crisscrossing beautiful strings of prose 

until all that remains 

is a dreamcatcher of renewed wishes

She is a wonder

the embodiment of all that is good

and worthy

and precious

breathing life into lost dreams

and lost dreamers alike

She is a wonder

a curator of fragile memories

a keeper of secrets too heavy to hold alone

a kindred confidant 

a borrowed gift of heaven 

. . . 

Does she know? 

12.31.21 Twenty-Two Things to Look For

“I’m going to make everything around me beautiful – that will be my life.”

Elsie de Wolfe

I can’t believe I am sitting only hours away from 2022. I can’t believe it because I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing one year ago today, and honestly … I don’t feel like much changed in 2021. Sometimes, I expect more from myself than what I accomplish and it makes me feel ho-hum, and then I see a sky like this one … like the one I was blessed enough to witness a few weeks ago and I think maybe, sometimes – I’ve missed the point entirely.

I’ll bet there are a million moments in my day that are this brilliant, this bold, but in my search for whatever I think I’m supposed to be trying, or doing, or achieving: I miss them. After thinking about it, I don’t want to focus on goals or self-improvement this year so much as I want to focus on twenty-two things to look for and appreciate every day. What about you?

Twenty-Two Things to Look For

1. The wide-open sky, filled with sun, and storms, and wishes
2. The smile someone is waiting to share with me
3. Eye-contact with whomever I’m given the opportunity to speak to
4. The comfort of familiar places
5. The recognition of a precious memory in a photograph I’ve framed
6. The opportunity to make someone feel important
7. God in the details
8. The sound of nature making itself known
9. The moment given to me in which I am allowed to dream
10. The gratitude I should feel for my body
11. Hope on the smallest and grandest of scales
12. The love that I wake up and go to sleep beside
13. The hug someone (most likely me) has been aching for
14. The ability to fall into my imagination freely, at will
15. Words that I hear, read, and feel
16. The attention I am given when someone listens to me
17. The positions of wife, mom, daughter and friend that I am able to adopt in a single day
18. Miracles abounding in plain sight
19. The moments I am needed
20. Something that makes me genuinely laugh
21. Prayers of my past coming true
22. The chance to get it right again tomorrow