I haven't been on here since the Spring; here it is--the day of the Autumn Equinox. Anyone still occasionally peeping into my blog must be wondering where I've been.
There are so many ways to tell you where, but the whole truth of it is.... I've been swimming in my own humongous little ocean.
I had been struggling with my art... trying to rediscover my own authentic voice again. I was feeling like so many other artists I'd been connecting with were finding their ways into my brush and pencil--- not a bad thing, mind you.....just confusing. I needed to be alone with my art and my soul and refigure who or what I was/am and how I want to tell that story.
Turning 45 this year probably had alot to do with these thoughts. I seem to be someone who unconsciously goes through major rebirthing processes at the zeros and fives in my life.
So....I stopped blogging and reading blogs (although I stuck w/ my FB page) and I tried to create my own little vacum of things that have always inspired me and triggered my art....
It wasn't working very well... I was still feeling more than a little bit lost.
And then....one day, while having dinner with my son at a local diner... a little girl shyly approached our table with her mother in tow. She came up to me and asked: Are you a mermaid?
I wish I could find the exact right word for how that simple question made me feel.
It seems that she'd seen me come into the restaurant and had seen my long hair and told her mother "that lady is a mermaid. See her hair? She's a real mermaid."
I wanted so much to be a real mermaid for her..... but I smiled and thanked her for the wonderful compliment. And told her how very much I wished I was a real mermaid.
The moment itself passed...but her question and the thought of being a little girl who is convinced that wondrous,magickal beings can live ordinary lives among the rest of us.... that has stayed with me.
And fed my art in ways I can't expres with words....
How often in our mundane lives do we get mistaken for a magickal creature? I want to keep and hold that moment, as if in a little sparkly, faerie-dust filled globe.....and every time I pick it up and shake it I will see that little girl. I didn't snuff out her belief in magickal things...I told her that maybe someday we'd both get to meet mermaids...
So....for now, I continue my swim in this familiar ocean..... the water is deeper than it used to be and I'm not as strong a swimmer, but age and experience are on my side. I know a little better how to save my energy and where the rocks are. We shall see how this all turns out.... maybe I will even end up sprouting a tail and flirting with Poseidon.
