It's March the sixth in the suburbs of Chicago. Today promises to be fifty-three degrees which is when Chicagoans begin wearing shorts. I tell the family, "We are going to go on a hike." There is much exultation.

I lie. They hate my plan. They don't want me to be their mother anymore.

We go to Meijer and spend thirty-five dollars on food which will be our picnic. There were a lot of chips, some gluten-free oreo-esque cookies, lunch meat and dill pickles. This is the only way I will get my youngest to go hiking. I promise a picnic.

The state park is an hour away. We have travelled by car to places fourteen hours away, but this mere hour feels like a week. They are very interested in complaining. My family is winter tired.

We arrive at Starved Rock and they immediately want to picnic. They drink Sprite and eat fake oreos and nosh on their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I pump them full of sugar for our hike.

We begin our hike with a 75-step staircase. It could have been more. All I know is that our hike has started badly, with more complaining. I am not happy at their attitude, but I can hardly breathe, so I just focus on my oxygen levels. I might die. But I must finish this hike first.

My children begin to fight. This is one of their greatest skills: finding out the irritations of one another and maximizing the other person's pain while trying to look innocent. I know this because I grew up in a family of five children and we did the same thing. It's human nature. They fight over who gets to touch a rock first or who picks up a stick. They fight over mud puddles. There are a lot of mud puddles. I power on. "This way," I say, pretending they are not fighting.

Immediately we are met with many, many mud puddles. Not just slightly damp earth. We are talking squelchy, squishy, squirty mud. The children are still miserable and I decide that mud puddles are definitely better than turning back. We continue on the path.

Many people warn us of the mud ahead. They tell us that it gets worse. I think how can it get worse but lo, it does. The puddles become mini ponds of water. Eve declares that she is in a "slippery situation." Morgan adds that she is in a "brown situation." They begin to laugh because they are thinking of poop. I don't even care because they are laughing at the same thing and it is not each other.

Our journey is supposed to be 1.3 miles one way. I figure a two-and-a-half mile hike sounds like a decent way to spend Sunday afternoon. I figure it will take an hour. I was never good at math. When one adds the mud puddles, the hilly terrain, the incessant complaining and the off-trail paths we forge, it takes longer. As in two-and-a-half hours.

After a while we begin to see magnificent sights. There is a waterfall with a 70-foot drop. There are slices of limestone rock which jut out, softened by time and water. It feels symbolic. Maybe I will soften after this hike.

There are other people on the hike. And a lot of dogs. The people are warning us of the mud. Some turn around. We don't. I have something to prove. I have two strong willed daughters who are going to use their energy with their feet. The rugged dogs have brown legs, stained by mud. The froo-froo dogs with recently shampooed hair are on the paved paths. They look perfect. They are fake hikers.

After more sludge, we arrive at an overlook. There are not many people here. Only the true hikers or the truly desperate or those trying to prove something. Like me. My children begin to say things like "Wow" and "Whoa." This is good. This is very good.

We descend into the lower trail. We are offered ninety-seven wood steps to help us reach it. The people walking up the stairs say nothing. They are breathing. They are only breathing. They don't even smile. The people descending the stairs are light-hearted. They have the breaths of someone who is recently retired, whose 401K tripled in one week. Everything feels easy. They walk lightly. They take many pictures and smile at the people who are ascending. Their smiles are not returned.

At the base there are caverns and rock formations which are very beautiful. They feel especially beautiful because we walked the goopy trail of mud and now we are on a paved path. A family stops us to ask us what is ahead. We tell them that the lower trail is beautiful and the upper trail is mud. They look fresh. They look like they have not hiked for long. I feel superior to them.

At our last ascent, we climb stairs which are framed by wood four-by-fours filled with sand. Eve rallies ahead of us and writes her name on every single step with a stick. She is marking her territory. We laugh. I am grateful for the laughter. Exhaustion quiets fighting and makes us slap happy. I feel like a genius for demanding this hike. A very tired genius.

As we round the corner for our last descent of stairs, lovers have written their names in Sharpie marker on the wood railings. People have written words like "You matter." Something in this set of stairs has caused many people to want to make their mark. Eve's sand words will erase with a storm, or, more likely, hikers with mud on their feet. But the Sharpie marker names appear to stay permanently.

Our hike is finished. At once my body tells me, "Listen, I'm quite tired." We are all declining rapidly. We want to rest.

We drive home the hour it took and no one complains. Dan begins to tell jokes which make no sense. We are drunk on outside air and wobbily legs. We arrive home easily.

We will hike again, I tell myself. Yes we will.

Get in the Pool

For all my life I have admired swimmers.

I love the young fearless way that little children slap the water, dunking their heads and re-emerging with large smiles. I love watching young swimmers torpedo through the pool. But my favorite swimmers to watch are the almost-elderly. How people in their eighties who can hardly walk on land, can snap a swim cap on their brow, position their goggles snugly on their face and begin to ease across the water baffles me. Inspires me. Urges me. They push off from the low end of the pool and rhythmically bob up and down from one end to the other. It's poetry. On land they are slow and burdened, but in the water they are suspended and free and weightless.

I told myself, "One day." I said this many, many years. Too many years to count.

To feel proactive, I decided to research an adult-swim class. I figured that I should know what classes are available to me in the future. Years from now, I thought. I called my local YMCA and they directed me to another YMCA which had classes starting soon. I spoke to a nice lady who said, "We do have classes. They start tonight. They're $120." There was no time to think about it.

This is the part of the story where I said yes.

There are many fears I addressed before going to my first class.
1. You are an adult. Many adults already know how to swim laps. 
To this fear I sighed, "True. Who cares?"

2. You might want to wear your swim skirt.
You know... because you like cookies.
To this thought I said, "The swim skirts weighs me down. I'm there to swim."

3. It's winter. It's too cold to go outside after swimming.
To this excuse I responded, "There are hair dryers and towels."

My instructor came to the class late. A small surge of fear came to me when I surveyed the pool and realized that I was the oldest person in it by two decades. I wondered how rude the instructor would be.

My instructor was 20 years old, a pre-med student on break from school teaching swim. His name was Evan, which felt serendipitous because my daughter Eve was going to be named the same if she was a boy. His upper torso was built in the familiar "V" shape of an avid swimmer. He was kind and courteous and not the least bit condescending.

I jumped in the pool and quickly realized that there were only two adults in the pool for the adult-swim class. The other three classmates were perfecting their already-seemingly perfect strokes.

I plunged under the water and began to show my swim instructor what I already knew. In truth, I knew how to swim. I wanted to learn breathing techniques and better form for swimming laps. I had hoped that my first class would be a cinch. The first 30-minutes found me desperately searching for air. I tried to play it off. "It's fine, it's cool," I told myself, picturing my lips turning blue from poor oxygen levels. It occurred to me that my pride might kill me.

I had to slow down, that was immediately evident. This was going to be harder than I thought.

By the second lesson, I had watched a few YouTube videos on proper form and air intake. To my surprise, the videos were really helpful. The small adjustments of the angle of my head in addition to exhaling-through-nose, inhaling-through-mouth were immediately met with fuller lungs. I was swimming in the water. I was not dying. My lungs were not on fire. This was good. I swam twice as much as the first time and found that, at times, I wasn't breathing properly because I was smiling. It's a little harder to breathe when you're smiling, but it can't be helped when you're happy.

Occasionally the melodramatic side of my mind tossed in a surge of panic. "You are a human. You are not a fish. Why are you doing this? Go home and be a good mother." The panic would throw the pace of breathing off. So I slowed myself the way I do with my children when they are upset. I told myself it was okay and that I was doing a good job. I slowed my pace and my breathing. Then I re-surrendered my body to the pool directing my gaze to the blue pool water, the lines of black tiles in my lane and the embryonic sounds of water beating in my ears.

The last five minutes of my class, a searing cramp crept down my calf and curled my toes into a pathetic fetal position. I was literally lame in the water. My pride could no longer keep me from asking, "So, what happens when you have a cramp?" I asked Evan, trying to not show the full pain on my face. "How much water did you drink today?" he asked. "I was hoping to drink the pool water," I joked, realizing that I was probably quite dehydrated. "Drink 40 ounces before class next time," he offered cooly. I limped out of the pool and seriously considered calling my husband to pick me up.

In the car on the ride home, I felt a sensation inside me which I had forgotten. My heart was beating strong in my chest, thankful for the exercise, but that wasn't what I was feeling. It was pride. Honest, hard-earned, no-nonsense pride. I can only see good from here.

For My Eldest Daughter

You wake up at the same time as me. You're twelve. You have many opinions laced with sarcasm and beauty and fear and joy. It's six o'clock in the morning and you want to tell me your opinions.

About football.
About coffee.
And a few stories about boys who keep stealing your science papers.

In between the lines of the stories are more questions. You are searching, muddling out your own new thoughts which are forming at a rapid rate.

It's six a.m. I wasn't made for loud mornings. I was made for gently crescendoing ones starting with hot coffee, two splashes of soy creamer, thank you.

I give you a morning hug. Your head doesn't fit under my chin anymore. You almost look me in the eye. You are tall, that is evident. But you are also lovely and I wasn't prepared for that. You don't know that you're pretty yet. When you look in the mirror you see a girl who is fun and goofy. But I see a pre-woman and I don't quite know what to do with the information.

We're both navigating the kitchen at the same time in the morning. Our bodies are colliding. "Sorry." "Pardon." "Can I squeeze by?" You are in my way a lot and I laugh at the reason. You are adopting my schedule and my habits. You even take the other vintage jadeite mug in the morning, filling it halfway with hot, black coffee and two splooshes of cream. Just like me. You hardly drink any, but there it is, matching my equally brown coffee.

Some of my clothing is missing. Some shoes. My winter boots. And also some gloves and a green coat. They appear to have found their way to your feet and shoulders and hands. You are thinner than me, but almost as tall. By the size of your feet you will grow at least two inches taller than me in a few scant years. This both delights and terrifies me.

Earlier this week you were spending all your time in your room. I was barking at you a lot. If I could change one thing about myself, it would be to bark less and to woo more. I try, I do. I fail a lot. Anyway, I was calling for you and you were annoyed because you were creating two dozen little stuffed objects out of felt. I never want you to lose the magic of creativity, taking something which is base and simple and ingredient-like and giving it form.

There are other goals I have for you.
Never stop asking questions. But ask them in a spirit of curiosity.
Be kind. Also be true and firm.
Like yourself. Love yourself. Be yourself.
Ask God many, many questions. He will answer you.
Laughter is learned. It's worth the work.
You are loved deeply. By your dad. By me.

Life may seem wobbily right now. You are changing at a rate which is faster than any other time in your life, suspended between childhood and adulthood, testing boundaries. By God's grace, I'll show you the footpath that I know. It's not perfect, but I'll do my best. Meanwhile: Run, grow, love.

Merry Christ-mess

It's a tremendously important time of year, Christmas.

I need Christmas more than ever.

I need the story of Mary's shame. And then her song.

I need the story to have a smelly donkey.

I need the inconvenience of all the circumstances. The rushed marriage. The disappointment of Joseph. The hurried journey for the census. The volatile government. The angry king. I need all the feelings to be messy.

I need the simplicity of the sleeping arrangements and the variety of visitors at the stable.

I need God to be flesh. To be poor. To be tired. To start with nothing. To be needy. To be inconvenienced and to be very small.

And then I need my soul to meet him there.

I need to enter the fear of Mary and Joseph as they wondered how they would start their life so impoverished and misunderstood.

I need to be still when people who I don't understand are called to be in my life. People like the shepherds. Or people like the kings, chasing stars, leaving symbolic but very odd gifts for a child. Perhaps they sold the frankincense for bread. Who brings perfume for a child?

I need the weariness of the Israelites, the tired watchers, looking for signs, longing for hope.

And then I need God to be born in me. To prepare a simple, earthy place in my heart where He resides and grows and spreads.

Everything which represents death to me, I need Him to be there. The rush of the season, the credit card bills, the misplaced expectations, the shame of being found wanting. I need God there in the murkiness of it all.

I need him to hold my schedule like the reins of a donkey and gentle guide me through all the busy places to the quietness where He is.

I need Him to feed and clothe me simply with forgiveness.

I need Him to meet me as a graphic designer, in my every day work and declare with wildly loud and bright, angelic proclamations that He is not contained by anything. Not by suits or ties or good presentations or perfect type treatments. Not by how we look or smell or how much money we make.

I need Him to remind me that families can have odd beginnings and endings and that the middle isn't perfect either.

I need Him to open my heart to make friends and acquaintances with whoever He sends my way. No matter what stars they chase.

I need Him to accept my gifts, no matter how wildly crazy or simple or inappropriate. I need Him to accept me, with all the ineffective ways I have clothed myself.

And then I need Him to grow in me, stomping on all the death in my life, leaving a trail of beauty where there was heartache and ashes and shame. I need Him to fill me so much that all the heartache in my life is simply a herald for new life to form. All the exhaustion is perfect for new strength, not my own.

When I don't have enough time or money or patience or aura or love or clarity or esteem. When I succumb to really good marketing because I don't have enough time to research something else,  I need Jesus to laugh and say, "Welcome to Christmas. Rest. Be loved."

Happy Happy Soul Soul

Over and over again this year, a line has been running in my head and it goes like this:

I want to live a life observed.

I know where this thought originated. I'm ashamed to admit it.

It came because I was throwing food down my throat without thinking or tasting or knowing. Or I'd skim through books and think I had reached the essence. It came because I told myself "If only I can be a little more efficient in this area of life, then I can truly rest in another area." Only the rest never came.

This thought of living a life observed originated when I put life on auto-pilot and treadmill mode, never going anywhere, just doing life. Keeping up. Filling out forms. Pushing paper. Rearranging schedules. Always planning for life but never really allowing myself to enjoy it.

But when I push the efficiency aside, when I shush my expectations and just let my soul speak up a little, I realize that it won't take too much to live a little differently.

Instead of showing up to work early, I can use 15, maybe 30 minutes to read or pray or draw or walk.

Instead of beleaguering a math problem with my 7-year old, I can stop and play a game. Reset our brains.

Instead of taking a walk by looking at caloric numbers accruing, I can take deep lungs-full of air and look at the sky.

An odd thing happens when I push the pause button on life... Somehow I am more energetic and focused and present. I've connected with a deeper part of myself.

I'm doing the slow work of saying "no" a whole lot to a bunch of beautiful invitations because my family needs breathing space. Adding margin to our schedule.

I'm marveling at people who tell slow, beautiful stories. Our society is so bullet-point oriented. In the past few years, I've altered the way I've spoken to people and not for the better. I tell them how many points I have to make and then I rattle them off. I didn't realize how much I spoke this way until I was in a parent-teacher conference with Eve's teacher and the teacher laughed saying that Eve numbered her points before speaking. I managed a smile, but my heart sank a little.

I have a few red flags which tell me when we're running low on time or time to think:
When I buy a lot of office supplies or organizational knick-knacks, that tells me I'm feeling stressed.
When I nosh on carbs.
When I bark at my children or say negative, brash things.
When I forget if I took my vitamins.
Or when someone lovely, like my daughter Morgan, looks me directly in my eyes and talks to me and I have to catch myself to listen to her.

I don't want to live a big, busy, soul-less life.

So when I make my way to the kitchen in the morning and see the pile of greasy dishes we neglected to clean the night before, I roll up my sleeves. I pour warm water and too-much dish soap in the sink and watch the suds climb up, up, up. I immerse a few dishes to soak. I look out the window and marvel at four fat chickadees and sparrows bouncing around my patio, eating seed that fell from the feeder. I start some coffee. I drink it slowly while sitting. I don't let myself stand until I have had a few minutes to enjoy the morning. The clatter of the morning will start soon enough.

Morgan is at a great age for sharing hilarious, loud and dramatic stories. So at 6:30 in the morning, I try to listen. Dan is laughing and Eve is just getting out of bed, her hair knotted in the back.

I take a dozen papers off my kitchen desk. Note to self: Make desk a happy place. This thing is a pile of responsibilities. Noted.

I push aside thoughts of the desk and push flash cards in the direction of Eve while finishing the last of my coffee. She is bouncing on a chair, waving her hands in the air while she answers correctly. After ten or fifteen minutes, she is beyond done answering what 3 + 8 is. So we play a game, her choice.

She bossily tells me how I must play and how I must act and I obey everything that she says. We laugh and enjoy these few moments before she goes to school.

She has lost her shoes again. And a library book. It seems like this happens every morning. I am tempted to run to my computer for answers to these stressors, but it won't matter, not in these minutes. I help her get out the door.

I write a few thoughts on my blog and start the day.

Not efficient. Not perfect. Just observed.
My soul is happy.

Len, the Dishwasher Repair Man

There was a large pool of water originating from my dishwasher, speedily traveling to my dining room. I didn't see it, but my feet did and I nearly lost my footing.

A week before a repairman came and found nothing wrong with my dishwasher which had been releasing rivers of water whenever it wanted. The repairman told me I was using the wrong soap. I looked at him skeptically. Because I have reached the age where I'm trying to save time by being honest, I told him that that didn't seem like a good assessment for such a large problem. He told me a long story supporting his argument and we parted ways. To alleviate my concerns about his diagnosis, he ordered some parts to come to my house, just in case I needed to call again. A few days later, assorted sizes of boxes appeared in the mail to repair the problem I didn't have.

Finding a puddle of water again in my kitchen wasn't unexpected.

This time the repair company sent Len. I had never met Len, but he came to my front door with a smile and I let him in, my dog barking frantically. He came in the house and set a large canvas tool box on the floor. Then he placed an industrial laptop on my kitchen counter and asked, "Okay, what's the problem?"

I told him of the water. I told him about the soap diagnosis. And I gave him three oddly shaped boxes which contained mystery dishwasher parts. Len looked at me and said, "That guy must have been new. It wasn't a soap problem, I can tell you that much." Len spoke strongly and confidently. He did a series of tests via trial-and-error to see if it was the motor or the gaskets. He ran the dishwasher empty. He couldn't recreate the problem, but he believed me about the puddles of water and he persevered.

Len punctuated his findings with stories. About an old lady who put undiluted dish soap into her washer and found herself in a sea of mess. He told me about how he saved up money for his son's college education. He told me that he had the same dishwasher as me and he hoped to high heaven that it never died because, in his words, "they don't make this kind of motor anymore." These words both comforted and frustrated me because I work my appliances hard so I buy strong brands.

In one story, he described how his wife emptied the dishwasher. First she slid open the top shelf where the glassware sat and lay a towel over it to absorb the water pooled in the top of the cups. As he spoke his hands moved musically in the air as if he were invisibly removing all the contents of a dishwasher. His story was so simple and lovely and ordinary that I was mesmerized by it. He smiled with his eyes. He must have a special relationship with his wife. Her, and his dishwasher.

He told me that my machine would benefit from a special cleansing solution once every 6 months. "Listen," he said, "at my company, they'll tell you you need this stuff every 3 months, but you don't. Every 6 months will do the trick. Now I have some of this stuff on the truck, but it's twelve dollars to you. You can easily go to Target and get it for half that price. I need to tell you this because some lady on social security got mad at my buddy for not divulging this information. Either way." His honesty was so beautiful that I paid the twelve dollars right there. In my mind, I paid six dollars for the solution and six dollars for the stories he told.

He noticed that I had a Kenmore Elite fridge that he was thinking of getting. He seemed like the kind of person who would appreciate frugality. I proudly told him that I bought it on Craigslist, a little pre-dinged. "My kids will ding it up anyway," I said.  I told him the one thing I didn't like was the flow of water from the fridge door. Within minutes, I found myself showing him the plumbing in our basement while he spoke of a saddle valve a quarter inch in diameter which would alleviate my water valve problem. Then he told me of a specialty store which carries these parts that no one else sells. "You know where the mall is?" he asked. And then he described in great detail how to find this little hole-in-the-wall place. "Even my company doesn't sell these parts."

After a half hour of chatting while he worked, I realized that this man represented so many other hard-working older men in my life who are largely invisible. They're old school. They change their own oil. They repair their own appliances and get their lawnmower blades sharpened every mowing season. They trim their own bushes and make sure their driveway is sealed every year. If you go to their garage, they have all their tools outlined on a pegboard. A lot of these men grew up in hard times and learned to do everything they could to make a living. They have difficulty paying other people to do work which they can do, despite the fact that their age is creeping and their knees are creaking.

There was something about Len's build and candor that reminded me so much of my paternal grandfather that I almost wanted to hug him. Who knows. He may have hugged me back.

When he left, I secretly hoped my dishwasher would break again so I could hear his stories.

The Stories We Tell

When I was a little girl, I sat across the table from two women. Both women had artistic backgrounds. I can't remember exactly how the conversation started. Maybe I showed them one of my pastel drawings. Not sure. But somewhere in the conversation the two women began to bemoan the loss of their friend, art. They spoke of art as if it was a memory, wistfully. I remember that moment because I remember thinking, "That would be so sad to have to give up something you love."



My early days as an artist were very preachy. I drew pictures of the Vietnam War and such. I forced symbolism and layers of meaning upon simple drawings.

One of my most liberating art classes happened at Montgomery College in Maryland. Watercolor 101. In this class I learned about pre-planning the color applications (generally dark colors last) and about letting my brush strokes be swift, simple and strong. Watercolor is perfect for people who are overly controlling. Once you take a saturated brush to a lightly dampened page and see the tendrils of pigment shoot, you just have to stand back and marvel. Don't touch it too much. Let it do its thing.



One day in class our teacher had us paint the portrait of the person to the left of us. The lady to my left was a very talented and refined painter. I held great respect for her work. She was a petite asian woman with glossy black hair. Since art class generally is messy, we didn't dress up. We often wore old clothes or smocks. And for some reason this dear lady who I admired didn't tend to brush her hair either. It was the 1990s so grunge was in trend anyway. So that day in class, I painted a portrait of her which very closely resembled her. It was a profile painting, which is generally easier to do for me, because the outline of the face is strong and clear. I was so caught up in the flow of the painting process, that I painted her hair exactly as disheveled as it was.



After class two things happened. First, my model looked very unhappy. She left quietly. And secondly, my teacher approached me with what can only be described as a split expression. She could tell that I had hurt this person's feelings. At the same time, the art produced was aesthetically pretty good. I remember the ache in her face as she struggled to convey this.

The next class the lady brushed her hair. And ever after. I felt sad that I made her feel so badly.

In this same class there was a lady studying art therapy. After each class project, the students hung their art at the front of the class and we took turns critiquing each other. This process was very helpful to see where we could improve and where we were strong. At nearly every critique session, this particular student looked absolutely paralyzed. Sometimes her paper was nearly blank and she would introduce her painting by saying, "I WAS going to put a tree here..." and then she would look at us expectantly and trail off. The process was always so disappointing.

I think that if we look at art the same way we look at making dinner, then we would see that people simply want to eat something. They don't need something fancy all the time. Just food. And sometimes the most simple of meals proves to be the most memorable of all. Sometimes dinner flops and you order pizza. But the point is: You don't give up on eating. You still need to eat. You still need to make dinner and try. At least put something on the plate. With any luck, you'll start to make food with more consistency and flair to the point where you won't even need a cookbook anymore. But make something. Anything. We need to eat.



It seems to me that art is less about color and brush and medium and firing and casting and more about showing up again and again and choosing the right story to tell. More about the time we allocate to composing an image. More about what we don't say rather than what we do say. And sometimes art offends. Generally I find that art simply wants to draw out a truth and offer it for contemplation. The truth could be as simple as, "Have you seen this color? Isn't it amazing how it interacts with its neighbor?"

I'm never offended when people say, "Well, I could do that" upon seeing a piece of art. The reasons for this are threefold:
1. I'm glad. That means the art was edited well. A lot of strong art looks accessible and easy to reproduce.
2. It means others might join the chorus. Great. Engage your creative side! Let's all respond to this magnificence called life.
3. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you have the time or heart or patience for it longterm. By the argument that "I could do that," we would all be expected to do all the professions and that just won't work for me. I don't see myself being a teacher anytime soon. I respect people who do it, however.

I have spent a lot of my life trying to quiet my artistic side. Tone it down. I went into marketing and branding. It's a fun line of work for artists. It pays bills for making pretty pictures and telling stories. Hopefully true stories. :)

But there's still a part of me that longs for my own voice where no one else is saying, "Be this. Say this." And for that, I'm thankful that I can take a few simple tools and put together shapes and colors and textures. So thankful.

I'm hoping to expand my designs, but I'm not in any hurry. The wise Elizabeth Gilbert was quoted in an interview as saying that she told her art something to the effect of, "Listen, I don't need you to support me. I will support you. I will wait tables or whatever it is so that you can exist." And some might say that her art is purer and fresher for it because Elizabeth wasn't burdening her artistic endeavors to bring food to the table.

Maybe so.

As I approach the five year mark of making calendars, I marvel at how many people said, "Hey, that's fun! I want that in my life." They let me have a little voice, a side of their kitchen cabinet or a section of their cubicle to say, "Hey, this is worth noting."

I sketched and reflected and edited and tossed and then people bought images of the result of this process. That amazes me. Art is like buying a piece of meditation. What a gift to have people speak into each other's lives.

What a gift, art.
What a gift, people.
What a gift, life.