Flight Delayed....

"  I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity."  - Edgar Allan Poe


I have found it difficult to find anything very interesting to say lately.  These past few months of days filled with phone calls, medical research, insurance companies and all of the bills that follow have left me feeling exhausted and creatively brain dead.  Having a normally incredibly silly child who is suddenly in chronic pain has tethered me, necessarily, in the real world.  For many people, this reality is what they do every day of their child's life.  I have been spending time at the Children's Hospital....I have watched these courageous parents and their even more courageous children.  When your child is ill, you find inner strength that you never knew you had.  For me inner strength and inner peace do not hold hands though.  My peace only comes from my creative voice.  Without it, I lose any sense of balance and other parts of my life suffer....my ex husband and I were just discussing this the other day....my creative wings have been temporarily clipped, but feathers grow back.  I know that I still have the ability to fly, it just takes patience and more work right now.  This has given me an appreciation for the crazy world of creative expression that I have been allowed and encouraged to live in most of my life.....I have so many people to thank, especially my family, for picking me off of the ground and dusting me off, or at least having the kindness to not laugh too hard when they've watched me trip and try to cover it with a intricately choreographed dance.  Thank you.....for seeing me as a better person than I see myself, and for kicking me in the butt when I've needed it.  I am blessed.  

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" Have you ever noticed that when you struggle to hear something, you close your eyes? "

-Marilyn Vos Savant

I haven't written a post in a while.  I made a resolution at the new year to compose at least one new post every week.  It had nearly become a weekly habit.  Some weeks I had more to say than others, but it was something that was always in the back of my mind and I'd always post something, even if it was only a quotation that appealed to me along with an image of one of my original pieces of art.  But life is rarely predictable, and at the beginning of March, it decided to throw me a huge curve ball.  When the map you have drawn out for yourself flies out of the car window, unless you have some idea where you are going, it can kind of freak you out a bit.  At the beginning of March, I had everything mapped out.  I was completing new work to submit to a magazine and had an upcoming show to create pieces for.  It was an incredibly busy time, I knew exactly where I was going and what I needed to do.  My creative voice was singing.  And then Reese came home from school with a splitting migraine headache that would not go away.  Today is May 2nd and she has not experienced a headache free day in 59 days....my new map consisted of pain control, ER visits, entire days spent on the phone trying to find the right people to help her, and doing my own research on the web.  Every day for the past 2 months has been consumed by worry, paperwork and visits to doctors. Our new reality has become a harsh one with the diagnosis of Chronic Daily Migraine Syndrome....I haven't worked out a map for this one.  And yet, while this has all been happening, I've needed to keep the image of the old map in my mind, because I couldn't just turn around and head home....there were commitments I had made to myself and other people.  I have had to strain to hear my creative voice through all of this, which has been a very unusual thing for me.  I was elated to hear the news that all four pieces that I had submitted to Altered Couture had been accepted into the August 1st issue, and I was able to create 21 new pieces for the Hopkins show which is taking place this Saturday....having these commitments saved my sanity and has proven to me again that I am capable of far more than I know.  Reese is beginning a new medication to go along with her drastically modified life.  We are in the process of attempting to salvage what is left of 7th grade, as she has missed 2 months of school through this....our battle is still an uphill, but I'm a runner, so I'm ready for it.  It's still a struggle to hear my creative voice, but I close my eyes and focus on it at some point every day.  My maps are mostly drawn in pencil now, for easy modification and when they fly out of the car window we are getting a little better at just winging it.....