Have you ever felt just so frustrated with everything in your life?….people….lack of work…anxiety that seems to always be lurking…where to turn..what to let go….a mind that is absolutely relentless ???? And on it goes….

Key to all of these frustrations is where does it all stem from? Perhaps a lack of faith …in God…in the universe…in friends…most importantly though in ourselves. Faith that we can actually pull through to get to a calmer more accepting kinder view of ourselves and our world…not the planet but our small microcosm where we reside …sometimes strictly in our heads.

Listening to a meditation site this morning it was about decluttering our spaces and more importantly our view of ourselves…letting go of stuff that no longer serves us…material things but more so mentally. Does this serve me with what I want in my life? Yikes, that was not what I wanted to hear….I’d have to actually look at difficult things I’d really rather not address.

Do I have the faith in myself to actually let go of the things that really no longer benefit my life in a positive way…to step back and take a very deep look within and let it all go…material things…mental blocks…people that I allow to take away my joy…fears that I can’t do this …way too scary thoughts!

Yes faith in myself to truly let go of sadness and anything that sucks the wind out of my sails. To take a hard core look at the closet in my head and weed it down to a smaller more manageable place where I can live and love more simply….without constant angst….alllll thatttt cluttter!

There still is no clear cut answer here but to simply start the process of decluttering…first in my mind…then who knows maybe my actual closet🤔

In all things to have faith in what is really important and let go of the things that are not adding to but draining my life source. The fact that this has surfaced repeatedly says it deserves a deeper look….

It’s a start and that is all I can ask of myself today..just start. This journey of life is difficult a lot of days but find joy SOMEWHERE every day and the frustrations seem a bit less daunting.❤️

Maybe even start in the closet…or maybe not 😊

At the end of a 2-day art show a few weeks ago it started to rain. As the rain grew harder we began packing things up more quickly. Some sea shell necklaces were hurriedly dropped into a bag without separating them into their individual small ones. That mistake will not happen again… most of the chains were pulled apart but 3 of them twisted and tumbled into one huge knot!

As I sat for multiple attempts to untangle this jumble of chains I became more and more frustrated. It felt like the harder I tried to make sense of the mess and untangle it the worse it got. Man, was there a life lesson in that one…😣 I concluded that tangled mess was like my life. I was ready to pitch it all in the trash…but this little piqued piece of my mind kept thinking just one more pull in the right direction and it would unravel..just keep trying..

How much time I have spent trying to untangle this mess I tend to create of my life. There are days and months I want to just give up and chunk it all in the trash. Then this still small voice says just one more time..just one more pull in the right direction…it will untangle and make sense. There will be individual pieces of beauty there. Just keep working at it.

I confess there are times I just do not want to try again..to work things loose..to pursue the other side of the mess..this tangled mess. I don’t want to hear that voice. I just want it to go away! But…then I pick up the piece and try once again. Admittedly my tangled mess is still here..riiigght here..staring me down. Tomorrow I will pick up the piece and try once again…

It’s exhausting to say the least to keep plugging and pushing and sometimes I have to stop. Walk away. Take a break. Rest. You know, breathe.

Tonight my 3 chains did indeed become 3 individual pieces…I came close to a hammer last night. Thennnn walked away. Gave it 24 hours. One more time..one more pull ..one more breath..one more step….they broke free❤️

Keep plugging my friends…one more breath…one more step…one more minute…this journey called life can certainly feel like one big tangled up ball of chains …but we know Who can break those chains don’t we?

My tangled up life may never be completely separated into tidy little pieces but then it might be too boring…who knows…maybe I’ll just write about it ❤️

It suddenly struck me in the last 2 weeks just how blindly I follow Waze. Even when I know where I’m going I plug into it for traffic and police locations. Turn here and I turn. Without thought just following the next step. Saturday it didn’t seem to know where I was orrr exactly where I was going. New construction areas that it didn’t recognize. You have arrived and I was at a Wendy’s with no house in sight.

Blindly and without question I follow a man made app and yet I question everything God is doing. In the case of the last week what He is not doing. Hopeless then angry because I’m not being shown beyond the next turn when I want answers for my future which feels extremely bleak right now. Why is it so difficult to trust God the creator of the universe who always knows where I am and where I’m going without fail but have no problem in trusting my phone to show me the way?

My daughter and I lamented the way the world is going in a conversation earlier tonight. Why some people seem to have no thought about telling you they will do something then never follow through with it…kinda the way I’ve told God I would do something and never do it.

Yes some real eye openers this last week in my lack of faith in the only thing that is faith worthy…God. Odd that a driving app would stop me in my tracks to take a hard look at my responses to truth and unwavering love and direction from true North.

This week I will endeavor to not be so frustrated when I hear God clearly saying detour ahead rerouting or hazard in the road ahead. Definitely there is the overwhelming need to know more of my story but I will step back and breathe…then turn right at the next light😊🚧⚠️pay closer attention to His direction and enjoy the ride.

Have a great week ahead…breathe…don’t get shook when you’re rerouted.❤️life’s journey can be one big reroute…enjoy the detour!

Take a moment..stop and smell the roses. We’ve all heard that saying but there are times in life when there just doesn’t seem to be a rose anywhere in sight. No breathing place to land.

As I was rushing frantically between appointments last week the traffic jammed so badly my gps rerouted me on some back roads around the DC area that I had never seen before. It was this uncanny back road that was so beautiful with the riot of colors in the surrounding trees. That there could be this place of breathtaking beauty and quiet in the chaotic DC corridor blew me away. Oddly I was the only one on this idyllic road and it felt like I had jumped some time warp. Suddenly the urgency of arriving to the next place took a backseat and I slowed to take it all in. My soul desperately needed that moment of quiet beauty to breathe in.

How many times do we in our haste of living forget to actually see what is all around us. Did it make my life circumstances any better…absolutely not…but for just that brief few minutes time stood still..I stepped out of myself and took a beat to see the good. It was what I call my Camelot moments..one brief shining moment..

Reality quickly sets in but this next week I will look for Camelot a bit more. My constant state of fear and surviving another day will still be there in all its overwhelming force but I will try a little harder to find that illusive rose…

It’s there I’m just sure of it….enjoy your week and look for your roses ❤️🌹

As a small child I was mesmerized with tops. The old wood ones that had a string wrapped around them and when pulled appropriately it would spin effortlessly and colors melded beautifully together. If the string wasn’t wound correctly it resulted in either a complete falling over or at best a severely wobbling spin. Even when the string may have been on perfectly if the execution of pulling the string wasn’t in-sync the result was much the same.. wobbling.

Funny how life can be like that old wood top. Even if our strings are wound correctly (doing everything we possibly can when we are supposed to) if we don’t pull correctly (our attitudes or misconceptions of things) we wobble out of control.

Just like those old tops we pick it up and rewind hoping this time to wind it correctly, adjusting where needed and pull it again hoping for that beautiful melding of colors as we watch a perfect spin.

If it were possible in this journey of life to get a perfect spin it would be great; however, this life is not perfect on any level. It is our perceiving that needs adjustment to see reality as it is ..not as we wish it was..realizing that perfection is not obtainable. To stop and breathe… simply breathe. We were never intended in this life to be perfect or live in perfect spinning sync all the time.

Attitude adjustments sometimes by the minute are in order to not only thrive but some moments to just survive. Here’s to all of us who are continually picking it back up, rewinding our strings and once again attempting a perfect pull. We all need to remember that even when we are wobbling, or even falling over into a skid across the floor, those beautiful colors are still there even when we can’t seem to see them.

Wishing you a perfect pull today ❤️❤️

Sun starting it’s descent

Warm breeze flowing through my hair

A lawnmower cranks a few houses down

Speed boat in the distance

Water lapping against the dock

A fish splashed near me

Sounds of birds bidding the day goodnight

Last sun rays coloring the clouds

Children’s laughter down the river

Cicadas starting their evening symphony

This…this haven by the river

The river gently moving in and out of the Chesapeake

Prop plane hums overhead

My calming cooing doves

These warm evenings by the water will soon turn cool and a sweater will be needed. Leaves will begin their riot of breathtaking beauty…but tonight I will enjoy the warm breezes and sounds …summer nights drawing to a close…autumn’s glory and chill taking over too soon.

Yes…I am a summer water woman to my core…decades of summer nights passing far too quickly…. bittersweet memories…

This journey called life has such beauty. Enjoy every last drop of your summer evenings..,they pass quickly…don’t miss one ❤️

When life makes no sense…when God makes no sense…

Just when things might possibly be getting better..a glimmer of hope…then blindsided from yet another direction…prayers seem to hit the ceiling then crash back down on your head….

How much loss can you take …how can there possibly be more tears erupting from your soul…the empty aching soul.

There are no answers ..when God is silent…just silent…He is there I’m just sure of it..but oh so silent.

Sometimes there are just no answers. One step at a time is not even possible. When the next breath seems impossible how can there be a step…still no answers…

For the first time in 3 years I cannot even find a shred of solace in my water sanctuary. Last night it was empty just empty. This morning more loss and pain compounded the emptiness. Looking at this beautiful blue sky and the sun sparkling across this water…nothing…serenity is not to be found ..

My soul feels only chaos, loss and desolation. On this day I’m not sure why the sun is shining when within it is dark, tumultuous and dying.

I should be painting…looking for work…moving…in any direction and searching for the good..yet here I sit paralyzed in fear and now today more anguishing grief.

Where ARE you God? I know you are there SOMEwhere…watching but still so silent….soooo silent.

Presently I see no answers….anywhere…no relief in sight…todays loss there IS no relief possible…the other issues remain…

There must be some good out there but today, as with the past weeks, it is lost in the shadows.

This journey of life is certainly ever changing…bad choices of the past that must be dealt with…aching losses that you have zero control over…searching to find a place to simply breathe.

There are absolutely no answers or directions right now..,so for today..,just today..,this hour…this minute..perhaps just this second…I will stop striving…stop thinking…just one breath ..then one more breath…today I will just be…let go….wait for God to show up…praying and hoping today is that day the silence is broken.

If any of you are feeling any of these things…one breath..then one more…I feel your hurts…your angst…the sun is there …the blue skies…not in the visual scope but your souls depths …it IS there I promise

Until there are answers and directions ..,keep breathing.., you are loved…love does not pay the bills or replace the losses..but it is what we have to give and share…keep life tolerable in our dark nights of the soul… I send you love today as always❤️🪷🪷

The ocean..a lake…a river…a swimming pool and yes even a fountain sitting in my kitchen…all of these make my soul explode with gratitude. 🥰

Recently I visited my sister who has a nice pool. It was completely beyond my comprehension she never uses it. I couldn’t get into fast enough. I gravitated to that pool and her covered patio the entire visit. Her response made me stop a beat as I had never actually thought about it. “Do you need to be outside all the time?” Yes, yes I do. Never having even considered that before it made me incubate the idea more thoroughly.

There are, I presume, a lot of us who being outside and in or near a water source is such a normal way of life it’s like breathing. We just do it without thought.

A small book was at a place on the beach I stayed years back called, “Water Women“. Intriguing little read but how I resonated with it. I am a water woman through and through. As an aside, a thought provoking meme recently, “what do you do when you go to the beach?” I goooo to the beach…nothing else just park myself on that beach…is that even a question 🤔🏖

Grateful for the blessing of my rental here on the river, I never take a moment for granted with the calmness and serenity it brings to my life. Breathing, yes it’s like breathing for me….it’s my life blood…my life line …my soul…

To all my water people out there..where ever you find yourself today,..I hope it’s by any water and you are breathing it in…nourishing your soul and core being …being who you are…a water person. Do you…just be…

I can’t imagine life’s journey being away from the water….and pray I never again have to ☺️

Love to all you friends…glad you have joined my journey ❤️❤️🪷🏖😎

Two roads diverged in the woods and I took the one less traveled and that has made all the difference…

Robert Frost

My favorite poem of Frost. Always, it seems anyway, I have taken the less traveled road. When I attempt the more traveled…the caged lioness appears without warning. Not being sure when she will rear her head I do know with absolute certainty…she will!!

As I’m sitting here on my wonderfully cool breezy dock this evening…I finally can practice what I earnestly preach…just be…breathe…

A particularly stress filled day of running endlessly and without much success in what needed to be accomplished…I shared with my business partner just in the last hour how horribly frustrated I was…frustrated is not exactly where I was..my comment I made Godzilla look like a gecko..was more on point. Nobody seemed to be doing what they needed to be doing today…everywhere I turned the ball was dropped…leaving me in a seriously agitated state.

Perfection…that dastardly word…yet my lot in life…reared it’s ugly head. Drivers pulling out in front of me without a glance, clients running me ragged without follow through, vendors not doing their jobs…stores with messed up inventory on their sites causing needless hours of driving…it was endless. By the time I arrived home I was in such a state I could barely breathe. Thank heavens my business partner has a calm head and just dealt with my barrage of spewing explicatives.

Out to the dock I came, feeling like the most misput, misunderstood person on the planet…honestly speaking…I was pissed off at the world and everyone all around me was to blame!!! How’s that for my Zen/Namaste points???🙄

Then…the water lapping…the cool breeze…the fading sunlight…summer evening sounds with my gentle cooing doves…ahhhh yes…my own words…just be…breathe…. (A bit of wine thrown in for good measure 😉) that road less traveled suddenly made sense again…

Perfectionism has no room in creativity…calm…that zen place of really breathing…

Yes tonight I will pick up my brushes and paint but not with urgency or perfectionism as the goal but to breathe into my God given creative being…

For this moment I will take a few more moments out to indeed breathe on my road less traveled. Perfection in this sky definitely…perfection in me..not needed….

This journey of life wasn’t meant to be perfect but just ours…on our own roads…whether heavily traveled or the winding path through the woods…it is ours alone to choose…to decide…to live ❤️❤️❤️

But you be the chooser not the chooseee!!!🫢

“Not until we are lost do we begin to find ourselves”.

Thoreau wrote those words. In the past few years I realized just how much his writings resonate with me. When we read author’s thoughts, whether in a book, a poem or music lyrics, it is somehow calming or reassuring that others have felt what we are going through as well. Those “Zen” moments of calm. We are not alone in our wonderings….is this all there is…where do I fit in all this…will it evvvver get better or easier…what do I do now…is it just too late to change anything….lost is how this feels to me…just lost… lost in the revolving spinning door to nowhere most days….but nowhere might be enough.

Thoreau’s words hit home. Lost…maybe now I can find myself. My life feels a lot like my rental right now. Piles of things everywhere I turn. T-shirts, wine glasses, doormats, jewelry, paintings, all the wrappings and tools to create it all. Yes complete chaos…with organization desperately needed.

It would be nice if I could organize my monkey mind that swings from thing to thing the way I can go in to create a semblance of order in my studio. Once creating hits a roll it’s hard to stop the ensuing avalanche. Ideas start coming faster than I can write them down and of course I feel the need to do all of them NOW! Thus piles in every room. Then starts the spinning door…walking from thing to thing with no clue where to start. The visual noise is deafening. Deafening, but somehow comforting, because that is how my creative process seems to function at its best…only a Piscean brain can understand this insane process.

Trying to keep my mind focused on my breath, while attempting to be still in morning meditation, I had the usual wandering off…then back to the breath…it occurred to me again that we have this moment…this moment only…focus on this one moment…this one breath…then the next. Find myself…find my purpose…today..maybe just today. Will I, or any of us really…ever find that fleeting feeling of here…here is where I belong and function at my utmost best. Right now I will breathe. Today I will stop and celebrate our country and it’s independence. I will go swim, well sit, with my daughter and granddaughter in her blow up pool. I will find myself today lost in my children for a few hours . Perhaps in focusing on just one moment…one hour or two…I will find myself there. Will I be found…whatever that means…likely not…but I will savor those sweet moments with that adorable 3 year old.

We don’t know how many breaths we have left on our journey of life…perhaps…just perhaps…it is in welding all this string of moments together …we find ourselves …one interconnected moment at a time. A general map of time is good but every second we breathe …we find ourselves …just in that moment…and it’s ok…that string of moments that is our life.

Happy Fourth of July sweet friends…maybe just find yourself for today…just today…whether alone or with friends and family …today breathe in life one minute at a time. Find yourself in that breath..in that precious moment of life…your life.❤️❤️❤️