Crisis. Everyone faces them; most of us make it through them. Usually they alter our perspective. Hopefully we learn good things by crisis. Hopefully we see better on the other side. Perhaps we are even more gracious and graceful in the end.
In the midst, though. Grace under fire is…well, just this side of impossible. Not impossible, but. Sometimes our knuckles are too white above clenched fingers to allow them to play our music. Our teeth set too tight to smile for our friends or for strangers..
And that is where I have been lately, where I am now. In crisis. White knuckled. Huddled over wounds, looking for ways to heal. Not to be melodramatic or mysterious or anything… Like I said, we’ve all been there at one time or another; what I suffer is common to us all. But if I opened my soul enough to write for real about it, I am afraid ugly, distorted things…things I’m trying to unravel and understand and get past would come spilling out. I won’t write here about my crisis. Not yet. Someday, after this tight sabbatical, I may allude to it. Or not. Someday I may have a glorious, lightning-streaked epiphany about how to see the story, so that I can phrase it in truthful and real and hopeful ways. Share-able ways. And then… it would look ordinary, possibly even boring. Nothing to wonder and exclaim about. And I would think, well my goodness. After all that, this only?
Meanwhile, there are things to do. I have been sewing through my grief. I have sewed lovely things. I will post pictures of the lovely things I’ve sewed. And pictures of other things too. I am learning to string beads (aquamarine and amethyst oh my) and bend wires into jewelry. I have been cooking, too (oh joy and deliciousness). Cooking to cope. Some of my cooking is actually good. I devised the most divine Mexi-pesto for a family Christmas party. Which got rave reviews, if you don’t mind garlic. And I invented (oh joy oh wonder) a new dessert. It is a cake that is so moist and dense it is almost a pudding, made with butternut. But I am the only fan of this one, because no one else would try it. Christmas candy and chocolate being all too present and available. And now, Christmas past, I will be in my studio with my oils and brushes again. Paintings are forthcoming! Hooray.
I may be in crisis, but like so many of you, I still love beauty, and still have a profound need to create. Stay close, friends.
Love, Lynaea
