Gratitude

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it doesn’t come with all the pressures of Christmas and gifts. We all come together over good food and give thanks. I like the rituals of inviting loved ones to join us and how we all want the same dishes from year to year or it just doesn’t feel like Thanksgiving. After everything that’s happened, I think we could all use a little comfort. I notice I find comfort in small moments of gratitude. Maybe gratitude is how we heal ourselves and each other.

I recognize gratitude is good for my well-being and even my physical and mental health. Specifically calling out and naming what I appreciate about someone or a circumstance naturally attracts more of it into my life. Isn’t that what we all need?

I sometimes express gratitude through paint in my art. It’s in my photos when I catch a special moment in nature and even in the simple noticing of what’s around me. I want it in my words and how I compliment people where I see them take care. It’s in naming the attributes of others out loud in the moment that they express those attributes. It’s in small acts of service and actions that recognize the circumstances of others.

I’m not advocating that we bury our grief or deny our feelings to rush to the positive. I am exploring…contemplating all the different ways to express gratitude overtly and covertly because the real power to change my own perspective and maybe even our world comes from expressing gratitude, doesn’t it? It’s the expression of gratitude that makes it real—that makes it live in the world. Is this how we put actual goodness in the world?  I don’t know, but I know we could all use a little more goodness.

Maybe we all feel gratitude when we can stop long enough to think about it. But can you imagine if all of us EXPRESS more gratitude? Would we experience life in an entirely different way? What would we see around us? In people? Would we feel more seen and less alone? Would hard circumstances actually be less hard or at least feel less hard? What if we used our social media to express gratitude more frequently?

I miss opportunities to express my gratitude far too often. I’m trying to be able to see those opportunities and choose to express whatever gratitude I can muster. I’m not always in the mood when I’m frustrated and impatient. I forget to allow that not everyone sees the world the same way I do and that their experiences have given them an entirely different perspective.

I'm making a list of all the ways I can express my gratitude—not just feel it—because maybe…just maybe if I can keep it simple and focus on expressing gratitude in the little pockets I can find, maybe that can change my heart and maybe even my little part of the world. What do you think? Want to join me?

WOW

I’m in awe of you. All of you. All who have shown me such love and support, such kindness. Over 70 of you made the pilgrimage out to camp to honor the work of grief and celebrate new life. People came from far away like Houston, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Nashville, and Chattanooga. People from downstate like Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, and Detroit all made the trek. 

You have to work to get up here. It’s not easy. It’s expensive. You have to fly and drive a long way and camp is in the middle of nowhere off two dirt roads. You will wonder more than once where in the world I’m sending you on this journey to camp. My job was to make the work. It’s God’s job to bring it to the right people. I trusted that whoever was supposed to be here would be. And you made it. You showed up.  

These are people from church or from camp, my late husband’s people, my now husband’s people, family from near and far, clients, friends of friends, and those I just met. I watched you all respond to the energy of the work with the color of your own experiences. Many commented on what spoke most to them. For some it was a specific work, others were amazed by the whole of it. Sometimes the palette and sometimes the poems, but I can’t tell you what a humbling experience it was to see you all.  

This is not something I could do alone. I wrote the poetry. I made the art. I made my meaning, but to complete the work, you have to bring your meaning. This is where we make intimacy and connection through our experiences—a communion of sorts. Everyone is alone in their grief experience, but we did it together. We were alone…together. We honored our grief and healing and celebrated the new…even when it’s hard. Even when we fail to welcome it. New life is here. Together, we honored our whole experience.

Behind the scenes, my team of top notch professionals and dear friends made miracles happen. Somehow they captured our heart and soul–captured it in photos and interviews, captured it in the decor and vibe of everything I was looking for in this event. You can’t force magic to happen. You can only invite it. I felt God come near and I hope you did too.

It was exciting and fascinating to be with you all in this. This is how I want to work. I want to use every language I have–words and images. I want to live right in the center of faith and love, art, and nature. I want to capture this kind of internal work and create intimate relationships through my art. I can’t wait to see you again at my next show.

The Vigil

The paintings are hung in the chapel with care. The chapel renovation looks amazing. The food and drinks are ordered. I’m praying the shipment of books arrives on time and undamaged. 

Mostly I’m thinking about you. I have no idea how you will respond to this work.This work that lived in my brain and my body for so long. It’s like I forgot it was ever going to live in the world!  You all are going to give it a life of its own.  

I finished all the details of the book. The writing. The painting. The audio was recorded. All the editing. Done. I sent it off to the printers and waved. I thought I’d feel relieved. Or released.  But that’s not what came. It felt SO POWERFUL! I was shocked. That’s not what I expected at all. This is the purest expression of my life. I never dreamed I’d be sharing it at first. It was truly for my own healing. I didn’t think about who would read it or see the art or what they would think about it or what would sell. It just didn’t much occur to me. I guess I didn’t have space to even consider it until now. It took a lot of energy and attention to just process what had happened for myself. I’m trying to sit with it.

But now. Now it’s going to be released to you and to a world of people I don’t know. You all will give it meaning. You will give it weight or merit for what it means to you. Feel no pressure to “like” the work or not. I’ll love it if you do, but it’s not really about that.

I’ve been assured over and over again how it will help people, but if I’m honest, I have no idea how. It’s baffling to me. I do recognize the value of sending a signal that you are not alone. You are not the only one walking a hard path or enduring an impossible season. Those people who walked a path before me were a beacon in my hard season just as I hope to be a beacon to those who come after me.

Y’all have agreed to come back to camp with me where maybe I can share my deepest and best. This is where my independent life as a person was formed. Where my life started. Back to the dirt where I married. Where my beautiful life ended with Dan’s death and service. And now where I’m expressing my identity as an artist in a new beautiful life. Circles of life and death and resurrection. Restoration. My people are coming from all over the country, from Oregon to Pennsylvania, Texas to Indiana, Tennessee and Michigan. So many from my team are coming too, those who helped me pull all this together.

And once again, I feel your deep and powerful love, the love of my people. I am blessed over and over by all the love we put in the world. All that love just keeps coming back to me from those who were there for my old life and those from my new life, by those I’ve known all my life and those I just met. We’re all coming together to hold vigil.

What will I learn from you all? What do you have to teach me? I am listening. I will hold watch with you. I am ready to witness. And celebrate…with deep gratitude.

Celebrate the Finishing of Things

I was haunted by insomnia for years and years. Sleep gave me anxiety and worrying about it just made it worse. I tried to find ways to adapt and make it work. Sleep 2-3 hours then maybe work a few hours before sleeping a bit more. I learned to throw in a little power nap in the afternoon. I made wee hours count by doing housework, my creative writing, and anything that required a lot of quiet.

One night I was scrolling through some articles, and I found a neurologist talking about a huge loss of productivity he had experienced. He just couldn’t seem to get anything to the finish line though he was working harder and longer than ever. He set about studying this as he had the benefit of being a brain scientist and found that he had inadvertently rewired his brain.  

As an entrepreneur, he was in a constant sprint trying to get stuff done. Like a lot of us, he had an endless to-do list that just kept growing. He found he had paid nearly exclusive attention to his to-do list. He wasn’t celebrating or even paying attention to what was getting finished. He hardly noticed. In his brain, he was essentially rewarding what WASN’T getting done, far more than the finishing of things and the natural outcome of that was his productivity had slowed to a drip.

I have experienced this professionally and I have, from time to time, wondered if I’m experiencing this in my art, especially with this book project. It’s taken me so long—over FIVE YEARS!!! FIVE. 

But my friends, I’m finished with my part. I’m not very good at celebrating things. It’s something I had to learn and practice. This book is about the journey of my grief. I feel so proud of how I channeled my grief. I pulled that trauma and devastation out of my body and turned it into poetry and art and made it into a thing. My late husband Dan always said I had to make it into a thing or it didn’t count. I did it. It’s a thing. 

And now I’m putting it in the world so I can share it with you. I’m holding a celebration out at my old church camp. Where my identity first formed. Where I first met Dan and where we married.  Where I held Dan’s service. My life started there and ended there and now a new life as an artist is starting there again. I want to honor this beautiful circle of life and I want to share it with you. Please consider yourselves invited.

Finishing this is worth celebrating. I think Dan would be incredibly proud of me. Edwin (my now husband) sure is!  

How do you celebrate big milestones or achievements? I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what happens when you reach a milestone and transitions and that’s part of where my art business came into play.  

I think we need reference points. Something our brain can hold on to, so we don’t forget, so that feeling of achievement doesn’t fade. Sometimes a story is enough, but I’m a big believer in surrounding ourselves with visual reminders of our successes. I’ve done this for years. A painting serves this purpose beautifully. Life milestones like births, deaths, sobriety, and moving—all bring great lessons that you don’t want to forget. What’s better than a piece of art that will give you that feeling or remind you in your daily life?

Remembering what we’ve learned is vital. These are expensive lessons. Remembering what achievement feels like, what it feels like when we overcome hardships is so important in preserving our energy and building resilience. How do you celebrate and memorialize where you’ve been in your life?

5 Years of Work

Lately I’ve spent a lot of time away from painting. I’ve been in big editing mode! The book is almost done. I’m anxiously waiting on proofs now. Sorting through hours of audio content and turning it into videos. Making playlists. All to support my new book, The Mysterious Gifts of Grief.

About five years ago, I began writing poetry accidentally. I didn’t set out to do it. I didn’t intend to process my deep grief over losing my late husband by writing poetry. Much to my shock, that’s just what came out. 

It started on a whim. At the last second, I was invited to join a writer’s circle hosted by one of my dearest friends. We wrote for 20 minutes that first night and what came out was surprisingly well formed and it made me think maybe I should attend again. I didn’t yet realize this started a faucet of poetry that burned to come out of me.  

It was fits and starts at first, but the work demanded my attention. It was relentless. Journaling hadn’t worked for me. It felt like a waste. I could never give words to the reality of my experience, my experience was far beyond my words.

Poetry was about imagery and metaphor to evoke feeling. The more I wrote, the clearer the direction I was heading revealed itself. There were certain incidents or things that happened that I knew needed to be documented with a poem. I started with whatever came up.  Later I made a list of what I thought I might need to write about and started crossing them off. 

I noticed that if I captured my most important images and feelings in poetry if I managed to be hyper-accurate, it would provide the slightest relief to my grief.  

If the poetry wasn’t “right” or “good enough” it didn’t work at all. I had to keep swinging at it until I stumbled into something that felt right and then, a bit more relief. Like pouring a tiny bit of the heaviness of grief into a bucket or a container so I no longer had to carry it myself.  

I shared some of the poems with my closest circle. My people encouraged me and said that it might help lots of people. I still can’t understand how.  

But one of my closest friends is a commercial visual artist of 30 years or more, and familiar with my paintings, asked where the paintings were that went with these poems. He said poetry is about imagery with words and equally, abstract paintings are visual poetry. I was stunned. It made total sense. Of course, I had to paint abstracts to go with these poems.  

I would love to tell you the paintings poured out of me the same way the poetry did, but that would be an out-and-out lie. Grief stilled my painting—stifled my painting for years. I was paralyzed by my grief and fear of grief. I didn’t want to go back there. I hired a new therapist and the paintings started to come. 

It took years for it to dawn on me what this project was really about—documenting the strange and mysterious gifts that grief brought to me. It’s been an amazing journey to be on. I’m so proud of this work. I’m so proud of myself for finishing this even though it feels like it’s taken me forever. Most of all, I know that my late husband Dan would be proud of me for taking my grief and turning it into a thing that will live in the world. Equally so, my now husband, Edwin is proud of me for building a new creative life that I share with him.  

I’m humbled by this holy work. I can’t wait to  share it with you. Check it out at wayofjen.com/pre-order.

TOP 12 Ways to Prevent Serious Regret

I’ve been working on wrapping up the paintings for my upcoming book that’s coming out in October.  My graphic designer and I are working through the manuscript layout now. I’ve been away from it for a long time. Scrolling through, I flashed on a very specific moment in the ICU with my late husband, Dan. It was the moment I had a revelation of just how bad our situation might actually be.  

I was afraid. It was a primal fear like I had never experienced before. It was so life and death serious that I didn’t have room to make a mistake. Something slipping by me could haunt me the rest of my life.  

Regret scared me. Regret seems heavy and hard and torturous as you can’t go back and fix it.  You have to learn to live with it.  I didn’t want to live with it. I can understand how regret can drive people to abuse alcohol or drugs. Even in my emergency state, it was worth putting some attention toward how I might avoid regret. I remember I pulled some scrap paper out of the trash and started writing notes to myself. My poor little brain was working so hard to protect me.  Here’s what I came up with at 3 am in the ICU. It’s still some of my best advice.

1. Shed denial immediately. I couldn’t prepare for what was ahead if I didn’t face it directly.

2. Be present. I sure didn’t want fear to rob me any further or cause me to miss anything. I also wanted to find any joy or peace I could between emergencies.

3. Do the hard things. There were so many hard things. Take it one step at a time and do the next right thing.

4. Avoid drama. I couldn’t afford to spend what little energy I had this way.

5. Pare down your priorities. I got clear on what was important and ruthlessly eliminated everything else. I made life very simple. Work, care, feed, and sleep.  I had to survive.

6. Take ownership of your story. I had to find a way to communicate appropriately what was happening without giving up our privacy. I made it very clear what I allowed others to share on our behalf.

7. Don’t let others hijack the situation. It’s too easy to let others take over and make decisions or assert what they think is best. It was my job to make sure I didn’t let that happen, no matter how well-intentioned.

8. Protect your boundaries. I got to decide what we were comfortable with and what we were not. Again, others might be well-intentioned, but I had to protect our family resources, time, and energy.

9. Limit decision-making under pressure when possible. I found that some in the medical community used fear and our circumstances to try and bully us into doing what they wanted or what was easiest for them. I had to really discern what was a real emergency and what was manipulation.  

10. Protect your energy. Oh dear God, this. I had to protect my energy in every way I could. I had to stop talking to some people. I had to stop trying with other people. It didn’t matter how close we were or if we were related. I had to quit so many things altogether. There’s never enough to go around.

11. Protect your relationships. Nothing is more important than our relationships. That’s what this life is entirely about! I told our people how much we loved them and we let them love us.

12. Prevent legal issues. I was scared that those who may not like our choices or who might escalate because of their need for control may cause us legal hassle. I did the best I could to keep things calm and de-escalated the situation every chance I had.

I was doing this out of a desperate need in the hospital in the middle of a tragic series of emergencies, but it turns out, this applies to life outside of trauma too. We get lured into thinking we have time. Comfort robs us of our dreams. We think we can avoid doing hard things, but all of that leads to serious regret.  

I’m focused on cultivating healthy, balanced relationships where I can bring joy and receive it in return. Hence, I’m ruthless in protecting my time and creative energy and refuse to spend it with people with no regard. This life is far too short and I deeply know it. I don’t want to forget that lesson. No regrets here. I’m still afraid of it.

The Visual Poetry of Abstract Art

The brain likes representational art because we are wired to recognize patterns. We like looking at a painting of the beach as it directly calls up our beach memories and experiences. Representational art takes a tremendous amount of skill and talent to make for sure, and I enjoy it. I can also appreciate the patience and technical skill to produce that kind of work.

Abstract art is my true love. It’s not nearly as easy for our brains. It’s much more subtle and harder to discern the skill and complexity involved. It’s more challenging in the sense that it often removes recognizable objects to purely communicate in terms of feeling or energy to the viewer. The artist pours their energy into the painting and the viewer filters that through their own experiences and feelings.

This is what I love about it. Abstract art uses line, color, shape, and texture the same way poetry uses imagery and metaphor. It requires a unique visual language that circumvents words and gets to the emotion straight through our eyes. There’s a tremendous sophistication in this economical visual language. It conveys so much with so little.  

The more experience I have with this, the more I fall in love with this idea. For example, I had a powerful experience with my art editor, Jen Brannon, who I hired for my book. We didn’t know each other before we started working together.  I had been researching her background and experience for several months. We had exchanged maybe a couple of sentences online before I approached her with my project. 

All she knew of this was that my late husband had died and these paintings were for a book of grief poetry. She had seen one painting of mine previously and that was about it. She wanted to experience each piece with no additional background so she could present a non-biased view. When we came back together, she asked me to tell her about each painting and then she shared her thoughts that she had prepared for our discussion.  

I was amazed. She connected with every piece. She had suggestions and questions about each one, of course, but she read the energy of each piece incredibly accurately. It was the most powerful affirmation and confirmation I have ever experienced in nearly any professional capacity.

When you’re looking at a piece of abstract art, ask yourself what feeling it evokes for you. Try to identify the energy of the painting through the movement of the brushstrokes. Learn to enjoy both the loud and quiet conversation in it. Think of it in terms of visual poetry and see if that enhances your enjoyment of it the way it does for me. Give Jen Brannon a follow on Instagram!

Place Makes You

This past week marked my late husband's birthday and death anniversary. They're only a week apart. It's always the hardest week of the year for me and this year it also included celebrating our niece's wedding (which Ed was kind to attend with me), but also the funeral of our childhood pastor.

Even though they moved years ago, they held the funeral here which created a beautiful reunion. We all came back home to the love of our people, some of whom I hadn't seen in over 40 years, but also back to our dirt.

Just like their family, I had a driving need to go home after Dan died too. Dan and I grew up less than 10 miles apart and met on the first day of church camp at 8 years old. I knew him for 40 years. We have some fragments of extended family in the area, and a few very dear friends, but in that moment, I just knew I needed to get back to that dirt, especially the lake.

It was as if I needed to go home to mark the start of a new life for myself before I was even conscious. My life, as I knew it, ended the moment he died, but I had no idea that's where my new life was about to start.

I wonder about this deep connection to place. Is this what drives the salmon to come back to their river in the fall? Is it their driving need to make it back to the river from which they spawned, to fight the current and swim to utter exhaustion just to spawn and die? The new life takes root in that river and will leave until it's time for the next generation of fish to return, spawn, and die, continuing the cycle for years and years to come.

I stumbled into this phenomenon parked next to a little river that empties into Lake Michigan so I could watch the birds. I come down multiple times a day to this spot and on this particular day, I noticed a few strange splashes in the river that I had to investigate. There were dozens and dozens of salmon running the river. I could reach right down and pull one out of the water with my bare hands if I wanted to. They were huge and tired and already some of them were dead or near dead.

I felt as if I had stumbled onto a sacred secret as I'd never seen anything like it! What a privilege to witness it! Did my neighbors even know what was happening?

I took a quick video and posted to my Facebook account so it would remind me every year to go check the river and see if the fish are running. It worked as I've managed to catch it several years running now. I feel the same sense of awe every year.   

I follow an account on Instagram called Nabalo and they once posted the following:

Cynefin: (kun-ev-in)  A place where one feels it ought to live and belong, where nature embraces and whispers its welcome.  

Etymology:  In Welsh culture, cynefin carries a deep sense of place and belonging, it's a concept that embodies a strong connection to the land and the feeling of being at home in a particular place, the word is linked to the old Welsh word cenedl, which means nation or tribe

I had a visceral response to that post as it named something I had no words for and no way to communicate.

I went back and forth to Michigan by myself many times that first year, often for weeks or months at a time. It was my safe place, a refuge. And little did I know, but at the end of that first year, I accidentally started dating my now husband, Edwin. Ed was raised on a farm just down the road from my dirt too. He too had gone away for work and then the lake called him back just like me. Much to my shock, I moved back. We now live about 1000 yards off Lake Michigan.

This place gave me two great loves and started my two great lives. This water healed me. It's in every cell of my body. And now, this place birthed me as a painter and it weaves its way into each and every one of my paintings. This place is me and I am it. On the actual anniversary of his death, I made a powerful painting to represent his death that just flowed, the most perfect name for it made its way to me, and I celebrated his life with the Perseid meteor showers and the northern lights danced. This place is magic and my heart is full.

We're Not Entitled, We're Blessed.

I loved my old life with my late husband. I was incredibly well loved by an amazing man with whom I was deeply in love and I had known nearly all my life. And then he got desperately ill for many years and then he died.

This is a tough topic to write about. I’m trying to be careful as I don’t want to hurt people.  Maybe I can get a pass because I too have truly suffered? Suffered in ways that ended-my-life-as-I-knew-it kind of suffering.

It’s the old “why me?” syndrome. When something bad happens, it’s very common for people to wonder, “Why me?”. They get stuck on it and can’t get beyond it. They are tortured by it, obsessed over it. It’s clearly a normal thing that lots of people experience, but it sure feels foreign to me.  

May I confess my real thoughts about it without being insensitive to others who struggle? As much as I would love to think I should somehow be immune to whatever hardship befalls me, I know I’m not. My philosophy is more like bad stuff happens every day and it was just my turn. I’m more in the “why NOT me?” camp. I’m not immune from suffering no matter how much I love Jesus, how smart I am, or how happy, or loving, or how good. I’m simply not immune to bad things happening.

Bad things happen to good people all the time, right? So why do so many people ask, “Why me?”. As if there’s an answer. As if it’s solvable. As if it’s going to change the circumstances or help a single thing. I marvel at the fact that they have enough energy to wrestle with the question at all.  

It’s like we forget that none of us get to forever hang on to the life we have right now. ALL of us will lose this life—not just when we die. Not when it’s convenient. Not when we’re bored and ready for a change. No. That’s not how it works.  

None of this is guaranteed. We are not owed this goodness. We’re blessed, people. Not entitled.

Painting – A Diary of Movement

There’s a full two-page spread in my sketchbook that says in huge letters, “IF YOU DON’T LIKE YOUR MARKS, YOU HAVE TO MOVE DIFFERENTLY.” What a breakthrough! I can’t believe something so simple could be so transformative in my painting practice. Simple but not easy. I still may need to tattoo it on the backs of my hands to remind me. This revelation prompted the greatest move forward in my entire art practice to date.  

If I don’t like something in my life, I have to move differently.

We all have ways our bodies like to move. Seems weird to admit, but I first had to learn to notice how my body moved. I wasn’t remotely aware. Everyone has a visual language unique to them that evolves in their painting practice. This is in some way, related to how our bodies move and that is unique and important. But habits are so powerful. They can lull us to sleep if we’re not careful. Painting taught me to be vigilant. Too many similar marks and my work gets boring. I’m slowly learning the principle that variety is life and sameness is death. Variety maintains interest.

The first way I learned to increase my variety of marks was by remembering to move in a variety of ways. I practice this every day. I focus on contrast by painting thin lines and then adding thick ones, or by making a big shape followed by a small one. If I paint something soft edged then I add another hard edge somewhere else on the canvas. I love playing with opacity and transparency too.  

I try to paint from a place of freedom and intuition and then step back and analyze what the painting needs with my “edit eyes.” I have to go slow and switch from one gear to the other. I tend to paint and do work calls at the same time as I’ve found both to improve when I do so. I chase getting into a good flow state—so sure, go with the flow, but if I rush it and paint too fast, I miss opportunities that would truly improve my work.  

The other way I achieve variety is to switch up the tools I use. What an unexpected joy to discover I could use non-traditional tools—tools not even intended for painting in my art. The thrift store, the kitchen section of the dollar store, or the hardware store? Dreamy. Oh, the thrill of exploration! feeds my creativity to this day. I never tire of it.

It took months and months more, maybe even years before it dawned on me that a painting is a diary of movement. It’s simply a record of how I moved every tool across a canvas. It is movement documented with color, shape, and texture. A kind of map of the direction, speed, and even the order in which I moved. 

I’ve learned to appreciate the power of a line every bit as much as a complex color mix. I’m fascinated by how a shape can communicate a feeling. It’s so powerful! Making something that resonates with people, something that they can respond to feels so life-giving.  

The Power of Grief

So many find themselves caught up in the exhaustion of grief or despair. We might be numb or just worn out or plain depressed. I’m all for the miracle of modern medicine for those who need it, certainly, but sometimes I wonder if grief is so socially unacceptable that we call it depression. Grief comes through all kinds of loss and it’s cumulative for sure. The loss of what we had or what we thought we had or what we thought we were going to have…. It all takes a toll.

As my late husband faced multiple health crises and eventual death, I lost bits of my life little by little, my routine, my security, my freedom and so much more. But then I lost my person and everything else with him. I should have been able to see it coming—intellectually I knew the gravity of our situation, yet when it happened, I literally didn’t know he was going to die. I went into shock.

Grief was terrifying. The heaviness of it. Its all-consuming nature. The permanence. It was so incredibly powerful I instantly succumbed.  Not out of some strength of character or personal growth level acceptance, no. I collapsed into it as I don’t know how anyone has the strength to do anything else. All I could do was sit in it. The intensity came in waves, but it didn’t go away. There was no reprieve. I will never be able to convey the level of exhaustion that comes with this kind of grief. I couldn’t bother to do anything in it or with it. I did the bare minimum to keep me alive, and honestly, I didn’t even do that all the time.

In our earliest days, my now husband Edwin recommended I read Hemingway’s Big Two Hearted River. The story opens with Nick Adams getting off a train only to see the town was burned down to “nothing but the rails and the burned-over country.” I instantly knew that Edwin understood the devastation of what had happened to me. There’s a quote in the book that says, “It had been a hard trip. He was very tired .... He had made his camp. He was settled. Nothing could touch him. It was a good place to camp.” That resonated with me. Nothing could touch me after the greatest loss of my life.  What else could even matter? The fact that Edwin communicated his understanding of this level of devastation by sharing this story with me is part of what made it possible for us to marry later.

The National Forest Foundation says “Typically, species that regenerate by re-sprouting after they've burned have an extensive root system. Dormant buds are protected underground, and nutrients stored in the root system allow quick sprouting after the fire.” That was absolutely my experience too. I had to go deep, beyond the platitudes, beyond the trite well-meaning things people say to those in grief, beyond even where my dear friends and family could journey, beyond my old life entirely, deep into the roots of who I am. I had to explore what of myself remained after such devastation, what could be salvaged. I had changed down to my DNA. I felt compelled to paint. I didn’t know it at the time, but I wanted to document the fragile little bits of myself that I slowly started to recognize as part of me. I never want to forget.

Fires are devastating. It’s hard to lose what you thought you had. If you are in a season of fire, all I can do is wish you good and deep roots. That you have the time and space to take stock in who you were and who you are now. Consider even the forests regrow in time. But it takes an excruciatingly long time. I hope you find signposts that show you where you’ve been or that help you recognize where you’re going.  I hope that’s what my art is—a signpost for you. Maybe I’ve marked something in my art that resonates for you, so you know you’re not alone. You’re on a singular path, but you’re not alone.

Chasing Awe

After my late husband died, deep grief left me unable to enjoy almost anything. Nothing served as entertainment. I had no attention span for movies,  books, or even television show series. Nothing worked. Even music wasn’t safe. The only thing I could stand was to sit outside, mostly by myself. Sometimes with others, but mostly by myself. I could spend hours just sitting there watching the world. I didn’t feel part of the world anymore. I could only watch it.  

I ran off to my parent’s lake house in Michigan whenever I was overwhelmed. It was easier to find quiet solitude there. The lake. The trees. The birds. The clouds. I mean I could have found all that in my yard in Nashville, but somehow, I just didn’t or maybe I couldn’t. All I knew was I felt a craving to go to Michigan whenever I could sneak away. Everything slowed way down. I needed it to. My anxiety drove me outside just so I could breathe a little.  

Once my thoughts would finally quiet down and I could really drop in, I found room to begin noticing. Noticing a color shift in the leaves or where certain birds nested. Every time I found something to notice, I snapped a quick picture on my phone, a diary of my days of sorts. So many of my old days were lost because there were no photos. Unconsciously I decided to do different now and document these long, passing days. I snapped sun rises and sets, dramatic clouds, the blackbirds roosting. Any number of simple daily things.

I remember noticing the position of the sun was shifting. How silly, I’d forgotten that the arc of the sun changes with the seasons until then. I started studying the night sky and the stars. I welcomed the early dark and snow as it arrived, so many kinds of snow. Big white flakes that dampen and quiet, dry sparkly snow with a crunch, wet snow that was hard to shovel. It didn’t keep me from being outside. I took pictures of the fog of my own breath in the air, patterns in the frost, and the dark lace of tree branches against the sky. Then I captured when the grey mist lifted and the green came back in ferns and leaves and grass.

All this brought me a feeling I couldn’t name at first. It reminded me I was still alive. But I had to work to name the feeling. It was a quiet joy. Awe. All of these were tiny moments of awe. Once I could say it out loud, it became more and more important to me to chase that feeling. I wanted to catch more instances of awe. It felt like little gifts to me. I delighted in their transience.  They almost felt like secrets. I wasn’t sure anyone else even saw them!  It brought a special thrill if I could catch it on my camera.

It was so much later before I realized all of that was subconsciously working its way into my paintings. Once I laid out the entire body of work for “Seasons of Water”, it was suggested that I should include some photography of the water that inspired that series. That made good sense, so I began to lay out the paintings and assemble appropriate photos alongside. I was shocked. I couldn’t believe how the photos so clearly inspired the paintings even though unintentional and sometimes with months or even years between them.  

It doesn’t necessarily reveal itself so directly in every painting, but I continue to be shocked by the power of my subconscious and how it plays out in my paintings over and over. My job is to just keep noticing. For me, that means we chase the northern lights.  We consistently go down to sunsets and sunrises. I wade into the cold rivers and look for where the birds nest. I’m constantly hanging out of the car in some contortion to capture just the right view. What joy to be on this earth.

I did this first for myself, but now I honestly love sharing just a little bit of all that awe with you too.  In my paintings, in my poetry, in my photos and videos. Do you feel it? That joy? Yeah, that’s awe, my friend.

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Love Expands

I cultivate deep, intimate relationships. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea and that’s ok. I just sort them out early. It’s not that everything has to be heavy all the time, but relationships are the only thing that matters on this earth. I want good ones and I invest in my relationships very deliberately. This kind of love isn’t always perfect and easy. This kind is messy and tear-stained, and hard sometimes. This kind of love brings loads of laughter and fun, but also sometimes costs our comfort. It’s a real investment over time.

I learned this from my late husband. He was shockingly protective of his time—like he knew his was limited. He only spent time with high-value relationships. Death was the true test of our values and our values were affirmed by our friends after he died. Honestly, it was such a privilege to witness the swell of love they expressed. It truly carried me. The pastor told me that in his 35+ years of ministry, he’d never seen anything like it. Profound acts of kindness. It was beautiful to witness.  

I’ll spend years trying to capture that feeling in paint. The bittersweet love and honor and grief and gratitude all tangled together. I didn’t know all those feelings could live so closely together.  I always want to remember that.  

I had no plans to ever remarry—I thought it impossible as I had been so happy in my marriage. Much to my shock, I woke up to the real possibility of love with Edwin, a love that warranted marriage. And now, years later, the love of our friends evolved and enveloped me and Edwin, even in this new life of mine.  

And that’s the thing. Love just keeps expanding. You can’t ever lose it. Not really. It grows and deepens and evolves to create such beauty. We may ache for what we had, but we also ache in gratitude for what we have now. This life is a blessing, friends. Sharing it is a profound blessing.

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Watching Love Return

New life started long before I could see it. It might even start before you’re aware that your old life is over. It’s shocking, overwhelming, and uncomfortable to get thrown out of your old life. I knew the moment my old life was over.  

New life starts instantly, but it sure doesn’t feel like it. It feels like the deepest freeze of winter.  The future feels locked far away and impossible. It feels like barren sticks, sharp and pointy.  Everything died off and got windswept away as new life pushed me into a season of nothingness. It was nothing as far as the eye could see. I had nothing to talk about. Nothing good had happened. No distraction was strong enough. I was bitter and angry. New life offers no hint of anything future. I just sat in it and trudged through my days as best as I could, honestly with no hope of better.

That season of nothing was an incubation period. Slowly, without my even noticing, new life was growing.  It took time. I started to find small ways where my grief eased up the tiniest bit. I felt a hint of a tiny thaw. Before I could even take that thaw in, unbeknownst to me, new life had quietly been filling in some of the scarred and empty space. And then new life blossoms.  In a shock of color and action, there it is. New life.

Sitting for hours on the beach. Parking myself in a lawn chair in the woods. Staring at the stars or the clouds, I was surprised to discover I could still feel awe. Chasing awe was one of the first ways I could sense my new life coming into focus. I followed the breadcrumbs of this new life. Without even knowing it, I changed my life over and over as I practiced chasing awe. 

I tried to find and collect people who also seemed to have a sense of awe. Sometimes that worked and other times it didn’t, but I kept following the path of new life, eventually more than I dwelled on my old life. I was rewarded for this. 

I had been steeped in death so long after my late husband died, I was shocked by a flicker of recognition of actual life. The contrast was so sharp it took my breath away. I was delighted by the mere presence of life. It felt like a miracle that I could feel it. That I could find some slight pleasure, some small direction or progress of something. I found it through my people.  

I have a deep love for these people, these dear friends who carried me into my new season. They brought new life to me. It was such a miracle.

I couldn’t DARE to think I would ever feel such happiness, such love ever again. Those around me worried I was lost and never coming back—and the old me never did come back. But then new life blossomed.  It’s a new me, I quite like the direction I’m headed. My art documents this journey. It reveals to me where I’ve been and where I’m going.  

These paintings capture things I want to never forget. That’s one of the reasons why art is so important to me. Surrounding ourselves with evidence of how far we’ve come can fuel us to move forward.  If there’s a feeling you get from a piece of art, I encourage you to collect it. Use that work as a reference point, something that helps you to instantly recall what you learned or what you need from that time or place or painting. Art is so powerful.

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Learning by Painting

I paint the same way I live. I play the best hand I’m dealt. It’s a balance between technique and skill and what just happens on the canvas. I love the organic nature of the paint and embrace how the paint wants to behave. The canvas and I have a call-and-response type of relationship. The first explorations of any painting are full of expression and possibility.  

Artists often refer to the initial marks as play and try to extend that phase for as long as possible. I keep my starts fresh by sometimes starting with line work and then adding paint and other times starting with paint and adding lines. I might choose a color palette, or I might know the energy of the feeling I’m trying to capture, but I never know what a painting is going to look like.  The painting dictates more of what happens than I ever will.

My paintings are a diary of my physical movement. When I’m doing it right, I’m actively listening with my eyes and hands. If I don’t like my marks I have to change how I move. I practice listening on a canvas.  

My early marks are driven by curiosity. I can’t wait for the direction of the painting to be revealed to me. I try to avoid falling in love with those early layers and start with bold moves even in a quiet painting.  Bold moves give me something to respond to on the canvas. It also makes it easier to refine and resolve more of the painting in the next phase. I can see more of what needs to happen. But it’s slow going. 

When my niece and nephews were very young, I visited them and painted several large canvases in a series for their house. I set up my makeshift studio outside and they watched me paint through their living room windows. They made up a little song about what they heard and observed.  “Make a mark, then sit down. Make a mark and then sit down.” They taunted and giggled as they sang their little verse at me over and over. I told them I would wreck the paintings if I painted any faster!

Almost without exception, paintings go through an ugly period in the middle of the process.  Making marks inherently introduces the risk of “wrecking” the painting, but really that is the challenge of experimentation. Painting myself in and out of corners is exactly what this phase is all about. Pun intended. 

Not everything works. But if I stick with it, sometimes magic will strike and the results can truly elevate the work. Over and over, the painting I don’t like in the beginning ends up a favorite in the series. Ugly paintings allow for greater risks and those risks almost always lead to good results. I have to remember this in my life.

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Protecting Creative Energy

How do you protect your creative energy? My husband, Edwin, noticed that he can ask me how I’m doing and I might even say I’m fine–I’m not even yet aware that I’m not fine. But he knows that when I’m not making art, I’m not really fine no matter what I say. That was a revelation to me. Art is the first thing to go and when it goes, I’m not really fine.  

This is something I’ve been studying for the last couple of years. I’ve suffered long skips in my art practice where I’ve failed over and over to protect my energy. I have been very slow to awaken to this revelation, but I’m getting a lot better at it. 

Gaining skills to deal with what is happening around me helps me keep that chaos from getting inside me. I have to protect what is going on inside of me or I don’t make art. I know it is solely my job and I can hold no one else responsible. I must protect myself from distraction, busy-ness, and over-choring.  But also from the unnecessary drama and stress in various relationships. 

I think of it as noise. The noise can be from internal factors or external factors. Either way, it’s noise that robs me and robs my art practice.  

The first step to combat the noise was developing the ability to even notice this elusive issue. I thought it was just that I was “busy” or had other priorities or I just didn’t feel like creating. I couldn’t connect my lull in practice to a loss of energy. I thought I just wasn’t in the “mood.” I wasn’t remotely aware how my emotional reaction to what was happening in my life would instantly cripple my art practice.    

I’m not talking about normal cyclical lulls in the creative process necessary for growth. I’m talking about full-on stops for reasons that don’t serve me. After those few observational comments by Edwin I started to pay more attention to identifying the pattern. I noticed I was most susceptible when my resources were stretched thin. This could be for any number of reasons, a lack of sleep, being over-committed, a difficult interaction in a relationship, or really any stressful situation.   

When my late husband died, grief took a tremendous amount of my reserves. My endurance now is far less than what I was used to before.  I lost a lot of my resilience as well. This made it all the more important to protect myself. I had to be much more mindful as it wasn’t enough to notice after the fact. I had to try and prevent these things from affecting me this way. I needed compensatory skills to support me.

I focused on fundamentals. Better habits and routines. I had to forego- activities in some cases and sometimes create more distance in some of my relationships. I hired a therapist and started becoming far more aware of how people affected my energy.

Getting outside is so restorative for me. Small daily moments observing the lake or the clouds, birds, deer, or even the branching patterns of the trees bring me so much joy. It is easy for me to find awe this way. I crave it. Sometimes I will even get up early to catch a sunrise or stay out late to watch a meteor shower or chase the northern lights. Mostly, it’s just me noticing as I’m on my way to something else, picking up groceries or heading to dinner.

My therapist noticed how much I filter the world through my experiences with nature, specifically through water. How my mind quiets the moment I get into the water. The peace I find at the beach any time of day, any time of year. My therapist suggested that I find the “lake” inside of me and start to use that to protect my energy. That has been a powerful metaphor for me, and even more so after a native friend of mine reminded me that every cell in my body is full of that water I see every day. That Lake is me. I am that Lake. Real wisdom right there.

I’m the only one who can control what I let affect me. I can feel the progress. My paintings are proof.  I can see the evidence all around me that I am getting better. My creative energy is far safer in me now than ever before. I’m falling in love with following where it leads me. I’m so glad you’re on this journey with me. It wouldn’t be the same without you.

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Water Heals Me

Painting has ebbed and flowed during different seasons over my entire life. In 2016 I decided to pursue painting more and invited a few of my dearest friends to join me in a painting class for my birthday. It was such fun to experience making art through the lens of each person. There were tremendous therapeutic benefits of painting through years of my late husband’s multiple health crises and eventual death. At first, I painted to distract myself from grief. I just toyed around a bit. I distracted myself with more supplies and fancier paints. 

The moment I tried to use paint to actually express my grief, I couldn’t paint at all. I tried and tried to make myself paint, but I just couldn’t for a long time.

In the very early days of our relationship, Edwin (now my husband) said to me, “After you’ve had a year or more of rest and of being well-loved, and without all the worries of medical emergencies and the piles of bills – all the energy of keeping your business afloat, running your household, and keeping your husband alive and ALL that went with all of that….that energy is going to turn into something and I can’t wait to see what that will be.” 

I fell in love and married Edwin, and moved to live with him in northern Michigan, about 1000 yards off Lake Michigan. I drive by the lake multiple times every day. I can’t go anywhere that I don’t have a wide-open view of the lake at some point along my commute, no matter the direction.  

I’m constantly surprised at what the lake looks like. The color ranges of blues and grays are so beautiful, but the unexpected turquoise and emerald greens take my breath away. Sometimes angry looking, sometimes choppy with joy, and other times still glass. I’m shocked at how much the waves change the shoreline and the topography of the lake floor where I swim. The ice comes in quickly and I feel sure we’re locked in until spring, only for all the ice to blow out the next morning. Big car-sized chunks of ice! How does it change so much?

Living that close to such big water has changed me. It wasn’t until I decided to merely splash some paint and water around on little canvas boards that I started to realize all that water has taught me. The water changes and evolves so much over the course of a year.  Each season of water gifted me a lesson. My life was finally quiet enough to notice. But it was through my series “Seasons of Water” that I was able to consciously grasp those lessons and it felt miraculous to be able to express those lessons.

Here we are, years later, and I think we know what that energy grew into–this life full of connection to nature, art, beauty, and love. I could have never orchestrated this for myself let alone, predict it. It is purely a Holy gift, a life that came through faith and living by the water.

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Doing Hard Things

Comfort is a gift, I truly believe that, but it can also steal from us. It lulls us into thinking we have more time than we do. It robs us from taking action when we should. It keeps us from being vulnerable and telling the truth. It stunts our growth and imprisons us in our patterns. Sometimes I think we worship comfort. I watch people prioritize it over EVERYTHING and that scares me.

Often life throws us into uncomfortable situations and forces us out of our comfort zone. Loss of a job, being forced to move out of our community, medical emergencies. We tend to name those times “bad,” but I don’t think of the things that happen as “good” or “bad” anymore. Circumstances just happen. That’s it. They just happen. My late husband died. I certainly can’t label that good. But I can’t label it bad either. Would I want him to suffer longer? Absolutely not. It’s just what happened.

Now I pay far more attention to my reaction to what is happening more than my circumstances. How I react to things can absolutely be good or bad. That’s what I believe. My response is good or bad. 

When I struggle and respond poorly to my circumstances, I find it compounds my problems and causes me to have to spend more energy, time, and resources that I don’t really have to begin with to just get myself back to neutral. That fight robs me. It robs me of my peace, of progress, it even robs me from seeing possible solutions. It certainly robs my art, and everyone around me. I need to get the best outcome in tough circumstances and that requires my full attention and surrender. I have to surrender my comfort.

I noticed that when I do the hard things, it might be emotional, and feel terrible at the moment, but if I do it, I eventually get the good things.  

It’s hard though. It’s hard to always do the hard things. This isn’t a skill you’re just born with. I have to learn. I practice doing hard things so that when the REAL hard things come, I have the skills to respond in ways that lead to the best outcomes for my life and the lives of those around me. 

The trouble is this can be confusing. Sometimes this means having hard conversations. Sometimes this means refraining from a conversation. Sometimes this means throwing myself into something new. Sometimes this means sticking with something that is hard. Developing wisdom and discernment is crucial to doing this well. 

The best boss I ever had once told me, “Do something to help yourself. Don’t just make yourself feel better.” He threatened to have it tattooed on the back of my hands. It was hard. I needed reminding. I struggled. That was some wise advice and I think of it often.

I always feel afraid when I’m faced with doing something hard. I feel every ounce of that fear, and I do it anyway. It feels hard. It feels uncomfortable. But much to my surprise, almost every time I do this the outcome is positive—maybe not instantly, but over time, it always pays. I try to remember all of the positive results from every time I’ve done something hard and use that to give me the strength to do the next hard thing.

The one thing I know for sure is I must do the hard things to get the good things. I’m going to keep practicing.

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Finding Focus In Chaos

Finding order in times of chaos is a driving need for me. It’s true in my art and it’s true in my life. In an art sense, order brings me focus.  It helps me remember what I love. Moving the eye around a canvas is the goal, but too many similar things in a painting confuse the focus.  The constant question I hold the closest is what do I want the viewer to see?

Order brings a sense of control over my surroundings when I can’t control all that is happening around me. Purging feels even better.  I recently swept through the house eliminating clutter. I worked through a couple of problem closets where I tend to stash stuff and got enough to take a couple of carloads to the local charity shop. Wow, did that feel good.  

The same is true in my paintings. It feels good when I let go of lesser things to make room to truly enjoy the parts I love and most want to communicate. What feels right for this painting? What feels like me now? Today? In this new season? It’s an editing process that takes time and careful thought, there’s an ebb and flow. Things come in and things go out.  An inhale and an exhale.

Simplicity.

Simplicity is so powerful in my life--I deeply crave it. After the ultimate crisis of losing my first husband, after living in constant crisis for years and years, after living in a house we bought and filled for a life we didn’t get to live, I needed to shed that old life. I was overwhelmed by all of our stuff. Some things just told me to whom they needed to belong. I gifted those things and it felt so satisfying. Our time was done. It was a new season.  

I gave away about 95% of everything I owned. Everyone kept telling me to sell the stuff, but I knew that whatever money I might make would never be enough to make up for what it was costing me emotionally and energy-wise at the time. I needed to move quick. I was right. I haven’t regretted one single thing I gave up. I felt lighter and more equipped to move forward. It gave me more life energy.

I try to remember that as I’m analyzing my paintings. It frees me to make decisions that sometimes feel risky but I’ve learned that often those decisions allow me to fall even deeper in love with what I created. I hope that’s true for you too. 

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New Life Is A Choice

Once I got thrown into this new life, I tumbled about for a bit. I think everyone does when they are cast into a new life. It is so overwhelming! Nothing is the same and I was so raw over it. Every single thing hurt.  

My late husband died after several years of a violent and mysterious illness. I had been his caregiver and I ran a business and then he died and my life died with him.  

I was told the grief/trauma combo packed a terrible punch and that I should seek professional guidance through this season. I immediately hired 3 grief therapists within the first couple of weeks. Well, three because not everyone is a good fit. The therapist I kept noted in our first meeting that I wasn’t wearing my wedding ring. She could see the imprint on my finger. She asked if people had noticed.  Indeed they had noticed and had a lot to say about how quickly I removed my rings. She asked why I removed them. “Well, because I’m no longer married.”  

I was scared to try and avoid feeling the grief as I thought grief would hunt me down for a terrible reckoning. I was more scared of a reckoning than I was of just sitting in the mess of it. I did A LOT of sitting in misery alone. I had to be alone. No one could understand what had happened to me and I didn’t have the energy nor the skill to educate anyone.

For me, aligning with my circumstances, as much as I hated it, somehow felt safe. I was afraid of how grief would change me. I was led to believe that I couldn’t trust my instincts or my decision-making. I felt very unsafe and unsure. It seemed like the only thing to do, as my therapist put it, was to be “hyper-present with my circumstances”. I had no idea this would be my saving grace. I just had no energy to fight this inevitable new life. I was furious about it. I hated it. I missed my old life in ways I could not have imagined.

I noticed others who got kicked out of their old lives too. I watched them torture themselves by fighting it, wishing and wanting what was already gone. I knew too well it was never coming back. I didn’t have the energy to fight it. I didn’t have enough energy to spend an ounce of it on what was gone. I couldn’t afford to. It took everything I had to bitterly wait for the new life to show up. I certainly didn’t think I could ever be happy again, but I knew holding on to what I used to have wasn’t going to serve me. So I did my best to let it go.

Turns out that New Life demands a choice. I had to choose it. I had to let go of my old life—not my love, my love was forever, but I had to GIVE UP my old life because I simply didn’t have it anymore. It was that choice that gave me room for my new life. I didn’t realize at the time, that vital choice gave me back the capacity for the future happiness I experience now, in this new season. My season of art and beauty and deep joy. That joy came first to me in nature, and then in art, and eventually the making of my new life and my new marriage.

New Life demands respect. I had to choose it. It was the only way I knew to prevent robbing myself of future happiness. And that’s what I want for you--future happiness. Future happiness is possible! Even if you can’t see it yet, may just the idea of potential joy be enough to keep you here long enough to find it.

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