where do i start, when me the writer has been gone so long?  i left fortydeluxe far behind in almost the exact moments i waved goodbye to my forties during a month that started on a wind-swept oregon coast with the most gorgeous amazing strong women on earth, and ended with strappy heels and leggy legs and a sequined slip dress on a twilight balcony overlooking hills that stretched to the ocean, with a very beautiful man who recognizes my soul as one akin to his sitting across the table from me.

i am a visual artist. since i was small i’ve been creating environments both real and imagined that people could enter if they chose to, and find a place to sit. i’ve always loved writing but didn’t know until i started fortydeluxe in 2009 how it was possible to build space – a visceral, almost physical space – with words. for those of you who read my little blog you know what a tough journey to a light-filled surface my forties were. i lost and gained so much it is almost impossible to trace the journey from being married with a toddler, to single parenting, single digits, the quiet space of singularity. god what an incredibly important and lovely journey it was, like landing on a big, flat, unexpected rock in the middle of a tumultuous ocean – water is rushing around you but you know you are safe.

2016, though not finished yet, has been a dramatic and crystalline set of months… heart-wrenching, flattening, poignant, beautiful beyond what i thought beautiful could be. i have weathered far more than i imagined i could, and i have worked ferociously to be a tall-reaching, stoic tree as those people i love the most have been pushed by strong winds, and have needed a place to seek refuge, lean into, wrap their arms around.

in the midst of this sort of myopic focus on family and loved ones, months passed and i realized how disconnected i felt from a huge handful of people who were always in my thoughts and on my horizon when i would carve out time to write. fortydeluxe had folded itself elegantly in to my past like an origami bird and i knew it was time to create a new space. after some consternation and soul-searching, i launched sparrowloom as a spot for me to embrace this new decade and celebrate the remarkable talents of other people, be they friends or strangers.

two things happened that i didn’t count on: the first was losing my father to pneumonia in february, and the enormous hole that formed in my heart where he still lives. second was the growing realization that as much as i want to share all the beauty i see around me and throw accolades at everyone i know every single day for their sheer tenacity and tenderness and giftedness, i am not done writing.

i’ve been rolling this around in my mind for weeks, weeks that have held both confusion and clarity as i consider living my life alone for a little while to recharge and manifest some calm. the overwhelm of the last year has left me depleted, and it seems i need to go inside and go it alone for a bit to quiet my life and gain perspective. it’s not something i necessarily welcome – it means letting go of a person who has met me in places so tender i didn’t know i could find them with someone. the idea of that loss has taken the breath far from my body more than once as i absorb what sort of pain it will mean.

where do we store pain, and can we hasten the time it spends with us or does it simply decide to pack up and go when we have learned what we are supposed to? i don’t want to learn again to let go! i have said plenty of goodbyes this year. but for weeks now pain has been sitting in my body – in my hips, up my neck, down my lower back, even in my ankles – and so i am compelled to pay attention to what it is saying to me.

this morning, early early before the sun came up but after the birdies had started singing and woken me, i listened to the rain falling and thought about words. water-saturated words, from rain, from tears, from the sadness of what is to come. a little of it all i think. cool air moved over my face from an open window, and i looked for pain in my body but was restful enough that if there, it was still sleeping. i thought about courage and resolve and authenticity and how i would write to make sure i committed to them all.

i am here again with words to remain true. to do the hard work. to see and be seen. mostly i am here with words because they give us a space to be together, if only for a moment.