“I want to know what’s become of the changes we waited for love to bring…were they only the fitful dreams of some greater awakening?”  – Jackson Browne, The Pretender

Around the time I started this blog I also began participation in a class based on Julia Cameron’s books, The Artist’s Way and it’s sequel, Walking in This World. The group was being facilitated by my dear friend, Kelly Forrester. Kelly and I met when she was seventeen and had suffered a devastating accident which crushed her leg and her dancing aspirations…she came to see me in my massage practice at my little business office in Traverse City, Healing Arts Associates. She generously claims I saved her life that year…she has now more than returned the favor some twenty-five years later.

But I wasn’t trying to recover my creativity in the class – I was trying to survive. (Turns out they’re the same thing!) I remember sitting across the room from Lisa Perrine Brown, whom I had never met, and having her look me in the eyes and proclaim that if I would commit to this process, to doing the work outlined each week in the corresponding chapter of the book, that my life was about to change…”Expect miracles…,” she insisted. I couldn’t trust that; I could let her trust for me. Danielle Bearre played us Amanda Palmer’s Ukelele Anthem and took orders for $20. ukelele’s…I didn’t order one. I wasn’t at all sure I would be around to play it when it arrived…but I have since become a huge Amanda Palmer fan. And when I learned that her husband, Neil Gaiman, had written some of my favorite movie stories, I embarked on a new reading frenzy. I started this blog and it provided an outlet for my 3 a.m. insomniatic angst…and Nan Peterson blurted out loud in class one night, “You’re a writer, Susan!” I could not see that; I could let her see it for me.

I had never met most of these amazing women. They couldn’t possibly imagine what their influence would mean. But this month I am participating in NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month. I write almost everyday; I have since day one of The Artist’s Way class. I paint and draw, for the first time in forty years. My life looks nothing like it did when I  timidly showed up so raw and vulnerable . My heart is still broken from so much grief and loss. But it remains as open as I can hold it. I love my new life.

For beautiful Kelly.