Day 16,591

I love this angel. She came to me as a recent Christmas gift from my dear friend, Sandi, who is an angel to me. I am trying to do one sketch per day leading up to Taos in May. I would love to have this sketchbook journal filled before then. There is a lot of experimentation going on ... a lot of figuring out what this journal can and should look like and contain. Some fumbling. Some breath-holding. I suspect that this journal will always be evolving. (That's good. So am I.) My techniques will evolve. What I choose to capture will evolve. The frequency with which I add to it will evolve. And all of that is fine by me. Really. Yes, even for a self-confessed creature of habit.

I have gone all week without the deep ritual of my Morning Pages. It has been awkward, yes, but not as hard to do without as I'd anticipated. I've been able to sleep a bit later in the morning, which has been nice. And I've had an unexpected insight. Here I am letting myself draw after decades of not doing so. Something ancient within me must be feeling nourished by it because now, from out of nowhere, revealing themselves like the first shoots from spring bulbs, I'm thinking of other things that I haven't done since I was a teenager. Things that I used to love to do back when I drew. Like sing. I was in chorus then, singing on a regular basis, and I loved it! And dance, too ... which is funny, because it's something I now go to extreme lengths to avoid.

What happened? Obviously, I didn't always feel awkward about these things. They came naturally to me. Having fun and doing things for the JOY of it, came naturally to me. It makes me wonder what else I've had amnesia about missing ...

Today I am so grateful for my willingness to follow this trail and see where it leads ... for the goodness of hearing the sweet voice of a far-flung friend ... for the synchronicity of reading an article in a magazine that I swear was written to buoy me, specifically.