words

"Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn."    

Harriet Beecher Stowe

I just visited another blog and found this quote. It totally touched my heart. I have spent the past month writing. Writing hard, even feverishly, some might say. You see, I decided to do Nanowrimo, National Novel Writing Month, which happens each and every November. I did not plan to do it, it just happened.  In fact, you could almost say I was compelled to do it. Why? I think because my thoughts were scrambled and my brain was just too full of toxins that needed to get out. So, I sat down at my computer, started up google docs, and wrote. I wrote from my heart. Technically, I don't think what I wrote is really a novel, per se, but it is writing, and it is mine, and it is valuable and wonderful and gut wrenchingly honest and brutal, even. 

As I wrote my words, I found myself driven to make entries in my art journal. Whenever that happened, I did. I just stopped writing, went to my journal and "did." I love my art journal. I think it is my finest accomplishment in 2010. But, I digress, as usual. As I created, both in my "novel" and my art journal, it became apparent that my life is strongly driven by words. I found that on just about every art journal entry, there is a word that comes out. I was amazed. I had never really stopped to think about that before.

Another thing that happened as I wrote was that my thoughts changed. The tide turned. I made choices. I decided to face the future with an open, honest, happy heart, and leave the darkness of the past behind. I can remember it happening, and, it was not while I was writing or crafting in my art journal, it was on the dark, 6:15 am drive to work around November 18th. I was thinking about my writing and about all that had come out of it, and I realized that something was changing, turning, much like the tide. I was making a choice, turning a corner. It was an incredibly giddy feeling. 

In a couple of days, it will be December 1st. I will endeavor, starting on that day, to create a specific Christmas journal, capturing all of the sights and sounds of the holidays as they converge on us. This year will be different from other years, in numerous ways that I won't recount here, but it will be wonderful, just as the holidays always are. Sometimes, different is just what we need to face the future.

I have also decided that Mondays are now going to be "Fresh Start Mondays" in my world. Each Monday will be an opportunity for a fresh start, a new look, a new beginning. That's 52 a year, are you game? 

God bless and have a fantastic day.