For those who follow me: I’ve been off track with my posts. Back to Mondays. I’m happy to report that my new book Daffodils and Fireflies is now available, and I am reviewing the final proofs of Canal Country Wineries. But this weekend, as I write this on Saturday, I’m in the same place I was on Day 25 of my 30-Perfect Days Project: at Lakeside, Ohio’s Chautauqua on Lake Erie. The Chautauqua movement was always about being expansive, and when they began, in the middle of Queen Victoria’s reign, the artists and writers and philosophers and abolitionists were intoxicated by expansiveness. At Lakeside, and especially during my Word Lovers Retreats, people exude expansiveness. The tribe of Word Lovers writers are looking at expanding, putting it out there, acknowledging the intoxication we all feel when we put words on paper. And we need the encouragement of each other, as well as the universe, and perhaps a muse, like mine, my more mature self, the woman with the flowing long hair and gossamer scarves who appears beside me, beckons to reveal layers of treasures and the untethered freedom of a bird, meandering on the garden path. With her, I am childlike.
Tag Archives | confidence
30 Perfect Days Log Post 17, Learning to Fly
If I believed I could fly when I let go of the branch, life would be so much easier. If you’ve read 30 Perfect Days, Finding Abundance in Ordinary Life, you know that every chapter begins with a quote. For Day 17, I chose this one by C. JoyBell C.: “You may not know where you’re going, but you know that so long as you spread your wings, the winds will carry you.” Even though my head thinks I should fly, my heart is afraid to go into the unknown. But if I allowed myself to go into the unknown, to follow an unfettered heart, with spread wings, miracles could happen. People who work in private on their art, their writing, their gardening, doing it for the love of it, yes, they should be celebrated, and watched. They are oblivious to the score because they’re in love with life and living authentically. They’re flying. Escape is okay. It reminds me I’m alive. Why aren’t we allowing ourselves to fly?