Anna DeStefano's Blog, page 18

Win “Trifari” Christmas Treasures!

Sparkling light and color and the true meaning of “treasure” are running themes in Christmas on Mimosa Lane. And what better symbol of that than choosing jewelry to be the visual/physical link between the sweet little girl in my novel, Polly, and the mother she’s just lost? As soon as I knew that’s what I wanted, my love for vintage Trifari kicked in!

I’ve created a Pinterest board with pics of jewelry that inspired the beautiful pins charming my COML characters (and my agent and editor and hopefully readers ;o). I’ll keep adding more pins as I get the chance over the holidays.

I hope they (and their part of the story) win your heart over the way they did mine–not just because they’re sparkly and bright and cheerful. But because of the deeper emotional story they tell in my novel. And how (I hope) they really do become a visual touchstone for triumphing over loss and learning to live and love again.

And to celebrate this Christmas on Mimosa Lane theme, I’ve selected a special pin for a reader giveaway–running now through November 30th.

Who wants to win a Rudolf to wear this holiday?

Isn’t he a beauty?

He’s a vintage piece of signed Trifari that I’m aching to keep for myself, but I’ll be sending him to one of you. See how much I love you guys???

And to keep his winner company, one other commenter will receive a $5 Amazon Gift Certificate. So, two chances to win!

To enter, simply tell us in the comments about your favorite Christmas treasures. Or about your own jewelry obsession. Or share a link to a Trifari pin that you like best. Leave us a piece of yourself (anything except for a sad little “I wanna win” ;o).

If all goes well and we get a good response, I have my eye on a Trifari Christmas tree like the one I write about in Christmas on Mimosa Lane–I’ll give it away in December…

Good luck! 

The Soul of the Matter: “Hope is the thing with feathers…”

Emily Dickinson charmed me with the very first poem of hers I read as a little girl: “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul…” There’s something about the way she puts words together that mesmerized me. There’s a loneliness to her thoughts, but also a bravery. A sense that isolation drives her to create, but that she’s also dreaming of the day she’ll be set free. Her internal journeys spoke to mine, I guess, and they still do today.

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all.

Do you see what she does here?

Hope is alive, even when it’s merely a captive in our hearts. It may not have a voice yet that we can hear, but it won’t stop. It won’t be silenced. It’s perched and waiting to soar just as soon as we’ll let it.

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That would abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

Okay, we’ll put the symbolism aside for another day (which she’s a master at with a few simple, sparing, painstakingly selected words)–because there will be another day. I’ll be talking ED once a week through the end of the year. Just try to stop me. But poetry and theme and metaphor aside, look at what she’s saying here… Hope is there for us when things are at their worst. It’s a sweet sound from the gale that’s trying to silence us. A warmth, waiting to be discovered.

Doesn’t that describe PERFECTLY that hint of second wind that comes to us in those darkest moments where we buckle ourselves in and decide to fight instead of go under? I know. I gush. But why we decide to rally isn’t the point–Emily Dickinson’s point is that we do rally, because hope is always there with us, in our souls, never stopping, always singing, fighting along with us.

I heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

More symbolism. I’m DYING to dive into the symbolism that flows through her minimalist poetry. But I won’t digress. Today ;o)

Because with these last few phrases what I hear is not just that hope is always there and always fighting through the cold and strangeness of what tries to take us down in life. It’s also that hope is selfless. A soaring selflessness that we can draw from when we need it most, and then give away to others.

Our hope doesn’t want anything in return for seeing us through our darkest times…except that we pass it on to others once we’re stronger. In the end, that’s what this poem (and most everything ED penned) says to me. It’s why I chose her hope poem to introduce my Christmas on Mimosa Lane.

I write emotional things that take the reader on a journey through many ups and downs, because the hope running through stories like these (the ones that drive our hero and heroine through the sorest storm and to the chillest land before landing them safely on the calm shore of a romance’s happily ever after) is what inspires me to create.

As I believe Emily Dickenson has from that very first poem (this poem) I read of hers as a little girl…

What does hope look like to you, my friends? It’s the question I’ve been dying to ask for months as I’ve waited for COML to launch. What will all of this mean to you?

Best of North Georgia: Jewelry!

Remember Harvest Hardware, folks. You’re going to hear more about these women… I’m spoiled in North GA, living so close to the artisitc lovefest that are the mountain towns just an hour from my community. Unique jewelry and other handmade finds abound at nearby small-town and county festivals.  My favorites of late by far are Lisa and Mary Wilkie’s creations–reclaimed and hardware inspired hand stamped jewelry.

This is their charm keeper necklace, hanging on a simple silver chain.

 

What they do is industrial but can be either delicate or oversized, depending on what you prefer. Personalization is a must, and they’re creativity will inspire you.

This tripple wrapped bracelet works like a cuff, except it molds to your wrist instead of moving all over the place.

It’s all mix and match, and you’ve never seen anything quite like it.  The charm variations are limitless.

It’s ingenious, what they’ve managed to do with items you’d normally find in a farm shop or a working garage. And their newest ideas keep blowing my mind.

Take their Two Become One necklace design.

Add the large fastenings that make each item it super easy to take on and off, and you’ll be hooked at first site like I was. The complexity AND simplicity of their ever-expanding ideas are what’s landed them on my Best of North Georgia list.

Who would have thought to use hardware to make the most unique charm bracelet I’ve ever scene?

I catch them every year at Georgia mountain festivals in the fall and spring.

They’re booths are crawling with women ordering one-of-a-kind, personalized jewelry these sisters-in-law insist fabricate on site from bits and pieces of hardware. While other vendors limp through a weak economy, desperate to pull patrons in to see their creations, the Wilkies struggle to keep up with daily orders–often having to hold up soccer moms and other customers so they can occasionally dash to the bathroom ;o)

 

Vintage inspired, yes. Like so many things about the North Georgia mountains, this art form is a call back to an earlier, less stylized and electronic age.

I have a charm necklace with hand-stamped talismans with all my favorite shapes and symbols–hanging from a black suede cord. And a bracelet made from think, chunky links tied with more black suede–it looks almost delicate. And a bent, brass, vintage key stamped with name and linked into another bracelet that could have been made a hundred years ago.

All created by hand, on site, while I chatted with these amazing artists who are getting national notice. Women born and raised in my neck of the woods and making a splash sharing a bit of their heritage and history as they create.

They’re websiteis under construction, but their facebook pageoffers a gallery of a few more photos than the ones I’ve shared here. And they’re running a contest through the first of December if you like they’re page and share a a status update showcasing one of their charm bracelets. So check ‘em out. You won’t be sorry.

Upcoming Best of North Georgia posts through the end of this year?Check back each Monday to see my favorite inns, water falls, festivals, hikes, restaurants, art, farm stands and much more! Things that make me love living where I live, despite being born and raised on the GA coast. Mountains and ocean. We have them all in Georgia. I love it all. But North Georgia…there’s something about this magic that just won’t let me go…

How We Write: Revision intro–scratching the surface…

David Kaplan says in A Creative Approach to Writing and Rewriting Fiction, “The purpose of writing a story is to rewrite it.” I taught a brief intro to revision a couple of weekends ago. There wasn’t nearly enough time. I like to teach this part of the writing process hands-on, over several hours at the very least. An entire day as part of a retreat is best–that way writers can bring in their WIPs and dig into the techniques, fussing about until they figure out how some if it works best for them. But the response to our limited time at this conference was overwhelming positive, regardless, and I promised my students I’d get more specific out here in my How We Write blog category. So…here ’tis. More details to come in the following weeks. Then maybe we’ll tackle my approach to planning through character. But let’s start with my very favorite thing–rewriting!

Like the above quote says, no book’s done with just a single draft in your pocket. Not even two drafts, if you aks me. You’re not done, just because you have your first thoughts down on paper (or in the computer). Once you’ve got that good stuff behind you, it’s time to make it even better!

Feeling a little cranky yourself yet?

Yeah, this motivational post is going to be a little heavier on the tough love than most.

Finishing  your first draft is just the beginning. It’s merely the end of your planning. For those of you who don’t outline your plot and character ahead of time (I’m shaking my head now. Can you hear the tense spots in my neck popping while I do it?), the draft is your only planning. But for even those of us who put serious thought into what we’re going to write before we actually do, we still don’t know for SURE what’s going to happen until that magical creative thing that is putting words onto paper happens, and the story itself takes over.

I’m a firm believer in the creative flow of drafting. The power of discovery. The synergy of planning and experience and momentum combining to create something magical. BUT… That something magical, that completed draft, is only the beginning. It’s not everything it could be. It’s not ready to leave your mind and your heart behind. It’s not all it can be. Which means, it’s time for the REAL work to begin…

Kaplan tells us that ”You need three things to be a good fiction writer…talent…a knowledge of craft…and just as necessary, a devotion to revision, to the merciless re-working of your writing until it is the best it can be.” And he (and Jenni and I) aren’t talking about looking for typos or grammar errors or tweaking your prose so it pops just so, though all that’s important eventually.

What I teach to craft students is re-writing, not copy editing or proof reading. Deconstructing what you’ve done. Figuring out why it works and why it doesn’t. Asking yourself questions like:

What did you do the way you planned to do it?
What took on a life of its own while you drafted, and how did things evolve from your planning.
Does the opening, the middle, and the end work?
Does your antagonist’s POV and conflict and motivation arc convincingly throughout the story?
How about your antagonist?
How about your external plot? Your subplots?
Secondary characters and themes and symbols and setting? How effectively do you use these?

And then once you’ve pulled all that and more out of your story and looked at each piece individually:

How do you decide what to do with what you have?
How you want to make it better?
How do you make this beginning you have the best they can be?
How do you get the pieces of your story to work with each other?
How do you put them back together again, into an even better story than you first drafted?

THAT’s rewriting a novel.  Not an easy process. Not a path for the faint of heart. In fact, it makes a mess of your story while you’re doing the work. It has to, so you can see exactly where what you’ve done needs the  most work.

But rewiting is a process that, if you master it, can take your writing and storytelling to a level you never thought you’d achieve.

Just like with the planning phase of storytelling, some great writers will tell you they don’t revise. And they’ll be telling the truth. Except the vast majority of them ARE rewriting, they’re just doing it while they draft. By going back and reworking each scene they’ve already written, over and over, instead of pushing forward in the story they’ve yet to create. They’re rewriting WHILE they’re drafting. Which might be great for the reworking part of their process, but how does it limit the creation that happens when they draft, or prolong the time it takes to produce that final story?

When I teach draft writing (another blog topic for another blog day), I encourage you to not break up that forward momentum and opportunity for discovery into shorter bouts. I’ll ask you NOT to go back and rewrite until you have your beginning, middle and end down on paper. I could go on and on, but I won’t tempt the crank-o-meter more than I already have for now…

Rewriting that is so closely tied to your planning.There are techniques for breaking down your process and overcoming your fear of revision. And if you’ve spent time planning what you meant to write before you began drafting, rewriting is your chance to revisit those early goals, refine them with what you’ve learned as you explored your draft, and make your story shine even brighter.

So, to wrap up this introduction… You should make time in your writing process for the rewriting that must be done before you send a draft in. You should hone your rewriting skills just  as proactively as you develop your skill at writing great characters and point of view and dialogue and plot and setting. Because it’s the rewriting that makes all these things better. It’s how an author makes a completed story seem effortless to the reader, when the writer’s spent months or years creating that world. Rewriting is how you know you’re getting the most bang for your buck out of every sentence and scene and chapter and part of your story. It’s how you are, in my opinion, at your MOST creative–when you’re mining for the very best your draft can be.

Next Wednesday in How We Write, we’ll dive into more specific revision techniques. Join me, won’t you?

The Best of North Georgia: Pottery!

Nothing could be more marvelous than discovering an artist in her natural habitat. Finding Cindy Angliss in her Hickory Flat Pottery studio is one of my favorite surprises after wandering about the North Georgia mountains over the last few years. Yes, I’m most often hunting interior waterfalls. But magnificent discoveries have a way of stopping me in my tracks from time to time with a wonder I hadn’t expected. Cindy’s artist’s story (mostly self-taught, with an eclectic but refined approach to shapes and glazes that draws me in like a painting each time I visit) and the location she’s chosen for her professional and personal home (close to Lake Burton and Helen) sucked me in the first time I visited…

Click on the first link above to read more, follow her events, receive her newsletter, and FIND HER the next time you’re out this way for and adventure. But for this Best of North Georgia post, let me leave you with her vision…

There’s an Asian technique in her glazing that demanded I buy this canister set after looking for just the right one for years. It now lives on my kitchen counter, holding the flower, sugar, etc. I use every day.

Here’s the same glaze, Mountain sunrise, on a tray–do you see the ridges and water and clouds and trees on the horizon that inspired her as she played with the technique?

A bird’s nest to die for, with her Mountain SunSET pattern.

Tea pots of unusual shapes abound.Nothing’s ever exactly the same as its neighbor/twin. And you can almost see her fingers forming each piece…

I’m inspired every time I visit–like I am when I walk into a museum.

And just to keep things moving along, her guest artists never fail to impress.

I just bought a tumbler from this Sunset Canyon Pottery collection.A smooth finish on the bottom that morphs into something closer to the feel of terracotta at the top.

And I’m dying for a piece of one of these David Morgan patterns, if there’s ever any of it left in the studio when I stop by.

Art thrives along side nature in the North Georgia mountains. Don’t let time slip away without finding your place in its beauty. Rest assured, you’ll find me writing and dreaming and hiking up there as many weekends and mid-week retreats as I can slip away…

GoodReads Giveaway: Christmas on Mimosa Lane ARCs

Exciting news… To celebrate Christmas on Mimosa Lane’s October 23rd launch,  we’re giving away 5 ARCs on GoodReads.

Just link over and enter!

Things My Teenager Says: Mom and Dad, I need to talk with you…

I write about families. Over the years I’ve lived dysfunctional, loving, growing, broken, want-to-be successful and submlime family dynamics that I could write about forever. It all bleeds together, whether I’m working on women’s fiction, suspense, sci-fi/fantasy or series romance. It’s all you, I teach students. Your voice, your story, your creativity. It’s all about you and what you’ve experienced and the people you’ve lived those moments with. Your challenge, my challenge, is what you make of what you’ve done and seen and heard and what you dream. And when my teenager says, “Mom and Dad, I need to talk…” I’m expecting yet another crisis to feed some future story, because that’s the most recent family dynamic I know best. Little do I realize that my kid, my young man, is about to blow us away with how grown he’s becoming and how much he’s learned to care…

“Okay.” I sit back down at the kitchen island as his dad steps beside me and takes my hand. “What’s up?”

I must look really freaked, or his dad does or both of us… Because the teen quickly says, “It’s not about me. Nothing’s wrong. Really.”

“Okay.” I’m not buying it. We’ve been burned too many times by moments like this where we could assume the best, but know the worst will hurt even more if we drop our guard.

Things have been going so well at school, you see. It’s only a matter of time, experience is screaming to my instincts. The expectation, anxiety, dread that I’m falling into is a trap. But it’s what we know.

“What’s going on?” My husband manages not to sound quite as suspicious as I do.

“It’s just… I…” He opens both palms and gestures as if asking for help. “I don’t know how to say this the right way.”

“Jesus.” I rub at the pulse pounding beside my right eye.

“No.” My teen looks worried about me. Like he’s almost going to hug me, worried about me. And he’s at the age/stage where initiating comfort and expressions of emotion/nurturing gives him hives. “It’s okay, really.”

“Just say whatever you have to say.” My husband does hug me. Just a little, to take the edge off so I can inhale again.

“XXXX,” my teen says, naming a friend we know well because he spends a lot of time at our house. “He needs our help. A lot. And I want to help him, only I can’t on my own…”

And then he talks to us for the next thirty minutes. Our teen’s talking and explaining and telling us his plan and how much he’s willing to change his life (and ours) to make what his friend needs happen. He’s caught up in the excitement, and he’s thought this through, and he knows we’ll have a million questions, which we do, and he actually listens to them and talks some more.

It’s like having a conversation with an adult. A caring, nurturing, other-focused, how can I help adult who is this amazing person all wrapped up in the amazing kid we’ve raised, only he’s becoming more than that. More than us. He’s becoming himself. And I absolutely love him.

Long story short, we’re behind him and his friend 100%. Hands down, we want this to happen, too, if we can all get in there and do what we need to do to make this work. And my teen is taking the lead.

“Mom and Dad, I need to talk with you… I’ve decided to grow up and show you just how proud you’re going to be of the man I’m becoming…”

Franken Berry ROCKS! Sharing the wealth ;o)

Yes. THAT Franken Berry. I grew up in a magical world where sugary cereal wasn’t unhealthy and letting your kids eat an artificially colored cold breakfast wasn’t a call for DEFAX and strawberry goodness was a princess surprise every morning that my General Mills employed father could produce a box of this delicacy on our kitchen table…

So when writing my first mainstream women’s fiction/contemporary romance, when I needed a way for a wounded woman to reach out to and connect with a hurting little girl who doesn’t think anyone understands what it’s like to be her, Fraken Berry became the first  pink, magical link between them. Sometimes it can be such a simple thing, a different kind of listening and understanding, that makes all the difference in the world. Christmas on Mimosa Lane is full of tiny windows like this. Connections where lives meet and deepen and share and maybe come undone just a bit more, so they can expand together and become more than they’ll ever be alone…

“Franken Berry?” Mallory blurted out, not above bribery. “When I was your age, it felt like Christmas morning every time I ate it. Strawberry flavoring and refined sugar and bleached corn flour…Crunch and sweetness that will make your back teeth smile.” And it could only be special-ordered from the manufacturer’s website a few months out of the year, since most stores no longer carried it. But for Polly, Mallory would break into her secret stash. “Ever had any?”

Polly shook her head. “My dad says healthy food only. I need to eat healthy to stay healthy.”

She stepped closer, and Mallory considered grabbing her. Except grabbing at kids who were hell-bent on running only made them more certain that they’d never be safe.

“Well there’s not a redeeming, healthy thing about Franken Berry,” she said, “no matter what the packaging says. In my book that makes it heaven in a bowl.”

The child was underweight. Eating anything sounded healthy enough to Mallory. As Polly’s nurse she knew there were no food allergies or preexisting medical conditions to be concerned about. And in the moon’s reflection Polly’s eyes were glittering at Mallory’s description of the decadent treat.

“Let’s live dangerously.” Mallory shrugged off her robe and draped it over the little girl’s shoulders. Then, catching a chill in only her matching flannel PJs, she led the way to the kitchen, turning on lights as she went. She checked once to make certain she was being followed.

Polly’s slippered feet skidded to a halt inside the door. She blinked at Mallory’s retro-looking, circa 1950s, pink and blue and green appliances. They were one of the few splurges, besides her Christmas tree, that Mallory had indulged in when she’d furnished the place. An early Christmas present, she’d rationalized. Actually, Christmas and Valentine’s Day and her birthday and maybe Christmas again. But the hit to her budget had been worth it. This room made her heart sing…

This is the early scene where my agent first fell in love with my book, I think. We share a craving for Franken Berry, you see, and for lost kids and emotionally wrenching writing. It’s also the scene in my very first draft where I realized I’d be writing a different, deeper, bigger book than I’d ever written before. Just gonig a little more interior and more honest and more real with my fiction than I had in a long, long time.

To celebrate this liberating moment and all things pink and sugary (and the October 23rd launch of Christmas on Mimosa Lane), I’m sharing the above mother load of General Mills Halloween-inspired cereals (yes, I know it’s not appropriate for a Christmas book, but Boo Berry and Count Chocula? Come on!) as well as a $20 Amazon Gift Certificate (yes, I’m a Montlake Author, so we’re going to be doing Amazon giveaways from now on… ;o) with some lucky blog commenters.

So, share your favorite childhood cereal (or adult cereal) memory in the comments for your chance to win. I’ll draw random winners the week of Halloween!

 

 

The Soul of the Matter: Too Close to Quit?

Ever notice that the closer you draw to something you really want, the more inclined you can be to quit the race that’s gotten you there? I know I can’t be the only one who’s natural tendency is to dream big and fight hard to make that dream happen, only to begin doubting (or dreading failure) just as the moment of victory draws closest… It’s so easy to pursue something beyond your reach, if you’re the type of person who doesn’t intimidate or quit or back down. Not so easy, for many of those same people, to accept that the achievement of all that’s been fought for has really, truly arrived.

Precipitory anxiety is as natural an occurrence to my creative mind as craving the sound of water, feeling more inspired between midnight and 3 am than any other time of the day, and always looking for a different way to see and experience ordinary things others pass by without a second thought. I’m good in a fight. I’m the point person who believes any threat or challenge can not only be tackled but conquered. I’m a gamer. But…wait a minute…what do I do at game’s end? More often than not, I find my instincts screaming, “But…what do you mean it’s over?” Because, I think, it’s easier for me to be in love with the dream than to accept the scary proposition that I could actually bomb at the very thing I’m wanting so badly to happen. Sound familiar?

I don’t know about you, but I feel much more in control when I’m scrapping and slugging it out and no one really expects me to get where I’m going but me.But put me in the end zone with folks cheering me on (or flash me an early glimpse of what that moment’s going to be like as I draw ever nearer), and I’m at least for a moment or two a freaked out writer geek who is terrified that everyone’s going to be looking while I somehow find a way to f**k it all up. So, maybe, it would be better just to never really get to that finite, glorious place where so much expectation and excitement meets reality and I’m finally allowed to perform on the strange I’ve known all along I could excel on…

Expectation can be a killing thing, if you let it drive you to doubt all that you’ve achieved and dreamed and fought tirelessly to make reality. If you’re like me, there are always those moments where your expectation is that you will fail and fail HUGE, no matter how successful you’ve been at winning the small battles drawing you ever closer to your goal. We often put so much pressure on that final moment of victory, we stake our entire future on whether or not we can handle actually having what we want. We too often assume we can’t–just because it would be easier NOT to rise to the challenge we’ve won for ourselves, than it would be to put it all on the line one final time only to fail the biggest fail of our lives while others watch us go down in flames.

Don’t do that, if you, too, are too close to quit now. Don’t deny yourself the chance to win and succeed and feel gloriously triumphant, because you can’t turn off the expectation of not being able to handle the shiniest of moments in your long-fought battle.

Act instead. Continue to act and fight and know that this is only a new beginning. A new battle to carry on from a place of triumph, NOT from a scary place of potential failure. You’re not going to fail, not in any way that would keep you from fighting on. If you were, then you’d have bowed out before now. What you are going to do is revel and enjoy this moment and allow it to nurture you the harder times to come–on your way to your next success. Stop expecting yourself to fail just as you’re succeeding most. Remember, that’s not who you are. You’re the person who succeeds just as circumstances are conspiring most to shut you down.

Yes, I’m talking to myself. Yes, I’m looking at another exciting time of potential personal and publishing success and trying not to pee my pants. And, yes, I’m sharing the angst of it all, as well as the triumph, because I’m certain I’m not the only person out there who finds the successful moments hardest of all to navigate. And my The Soul of the Matter posts have never pulled their punches when it comes to just how bizarrely I can see the world around me and within me and in all of us. So sit back and enjoy the ride… I suspect October, November and December to be rich fodder for more motivational and self-doubting posts just like this.

Will I fall apart? Will I be cheering only myself on as I angst into the void? Or are there others out there brave enough to claim their neuroses with the same abandon? Time alone will tell.

Join me if you dare (or if you like to feel better about yourself by watching a writer come unglued as her biggest publishing debut to date draws near ;o). But above all, never, ever quit. Keep fighting. Keep claiming your own success. Then start the next battle right away, climbing to your own next dream height. And then the next…

The Soul of the Matter: Clouds…

Clouds. They’re magical,  mystical,  dreamed of places in the sky. And if we let them in, if we stop and look up and outside of ourselved and beyond our earthbound needs and demands, they can change our reality.

I take pictures of the sky as often as I can, when there’s something new to see, to remind myself to always look up. Whether you’re standing or sitting or lying on the ground, peering into the horizon can make you feel as if you’re standing on the edge of the world, about to fling yourself into something fantastical.

Storms and sun and wind and sparks of water shimmering into mist live there.

Colors and parts of ourselves we don’t even know are missing until we find them there.

Anything is possible.

Each picture I capture with my phone–yes, all of these worlds are the air above me as I lift my eyes and my iPhone and capture what I would have let slip by–is another place I’ve traveled, another reality I’ve dreamed.

At least that’s what I tell myself as I imagine dragons floating above a neighborhood park.

And history spreading out beneath the sky, above mountain ranges dancing like waves, just beyond my reach.

And spirits visiting closer than ever, dusky and agressive, shadows reflecting mysteries across my evening walk.

Or dawning with promise on a clean white morning, after a darkening year that drew me to this place, this time, this memory of clouds that somehow helped me breath and smile and cry a little, because have you ever seen anything so delicate and pure and dripping with promise?

A clouded mind is one of weight and dread and anxiety, some say. But for me, I invited the clouds in to play. They’re my touchstone. They’re in my soul. They remind me to never give in to the feelings that I’m hopelessly stuck. That the world is only where I am in a moment. They are proof that fantasy and dreams surround us every day. Just look up, these pictures remind me. Believe beyond this day’s reality.

Dream of clouds, my friends. Dream of more and tomorrow. Dream of who you become when your gaze rises and ignites your mind with the magic you’ve yet to see, marching on without you until the day you let it open your heart just a bit wider…