On the Edge of 46

Hi. It’s been a while. I have done almost everything with this space… everything except write.

I have planned and strategized, mapped and masterminded, and thought through the tiniest details because somehow planning the thing is safe. Controlled. Orderly. Color-coded and annotated.

With academic citations worn like custom-fit armor.

But creating is vulnerable. Facing the reality the words I’m looking for may still elude me is an exercise in befriending my changed brain, even as I stretch it farther into wholeness. Into heldness.

(Yes, I just made up that word. I’m sure others have too. It’s a good one. You’re welcome.)

As I stand on the edge of a new year, beginning my 46th trip around the sun, I realize the thing I must do is write. And get out more. But that’s another post.

What I must do is put words together here, before simply building a membership or subscription for the sake of a necessary business model.

The membership remains 😉 and will become in its own time. I’m dreaming of something for one of my favorite weeks of the year a little later this winter. I look forward to sharing as I am more sure of the shape it will take.

But for right now I’m here to write you the stories of my days and thoughts following a less-travelled creative path. The highs and lows… its great triumphs, and the harrowing moments in between.

I firmly believe the best writing, the most powerful stories are the ones that help us feel seen, heard, held, less alone. The stories we can see our own journey in. And the words that matter most are the ones we write with our lives.

Wonder. It lives in the cracks of our world, so I’m going to write about those places. The cracked broken spots where wonder takes root and finds it being.

Whether we talk about embracing wonder as a practice, creativity care for creatives, or the thoughts that come while sitting under my backyard tree as the leaves finally change for fall in December because in north Florida autumn refuses to be hurried by a calendar date.

But this truth remains— beauty is nourishment for our deepest places.

I want this space to be a place where you can curl up with your favorite cup of tea and feel like you’re being welcomed by a friend. Because you are.

A space where the beauty that exists “between awakening and surrender” (thank you John O’Donohue for this phrase) is seen and celebrated.

A place where you can receive courage for your soul and your wildest creative dreams. We need more wild dreamers and wonder seekers that embrace the edges of things.

At 46, there are more lines on my face than I expect. But each one of them traces a path from a season I have fought hard to find my way through. Somehow I always look 28 in my head though. Is that just me?

A favorite Youtuber, Rajiv Surendra, shared in his latest video about how his antique treasures that are a little worn and imperfect are all the more beautiful for their imperfections.

It’s the beauty that only comes from a richly storied history.

I’m going to choose to believe the same applies to people, especially the person I see in the mirror every morning.

This whole artist, creative entrepreneur thing can exist in a separate dimension if we let it. Nice and neat, programmed and sanitized with three step plans, and all the appropriate contingencies. But that is about as real as the heavily curated Instagram feed I am invited to feel judged by every day.

Wonder is found along the edges, in the cracks, in the margins, the space between words and the worlds they create.

So I’m going to stop trying to fit the wonder I write about into the shape of a brilliantly executed topiary. This year I’m going to let it grow wild and free like the salvia and holy basil that have gloriously taken over my autumn garden.

My journey has never only been one thing. So I scarcely believe it will start being one thing now.

I still don’t fully know everything that will happen in this space… I have some ideas and some big dreams, but we’ll see how they unfold and discover what it looks like together.

I truly don’t think we need more theories or an academic treatise on the psychology of wonder.

We need stories and examples and maybe, just maybe, wildly kind voices that give us permission. To know we aren’t alone. To know we are invited and included in a world that likes to keep us siloed and apart.

The only way I know to create actual community around the practice of wonder is by embodying that practice myself, sharing the journey here, and making space for you to come with me. Because I believe more than ever the words that matter are the ones I live out every day.

You are loved,