A New Beginning

Coffee in a lovely mint green and bronze ceramic mug, nothing but the clacking of the keys for music this morning. My new companion Rémy lounges regally next to me, waiting till we go for walkies. 

Today I opened a blank page in this blog for the first time in almost a year and a half, and fell right back into the comfortable pattern of many years ago: what coffee mug was I using today, and what music was I listening to. 

When I began blogging almost nine years ago, writing was really, really hard for me. I was self-conscious as I had been told my writing wasn't good by both my undergraduate and graduate mentors, so I believed it wasn't any good. But I started the blog because I had just been offered a book contract with a well-known publisher, and I needed to start exercising my writing muscle daily and getting stronger so I could tackle the book. I started with that opening sentence because I found that once I wrote  "Coffee in the...", it would unlock my mind and my fingers and I could go on with the rest of the post. Pretty soon, daily blogging became an addiction, and I discovered two things: 1) I loved to write, and 2) it mattered less that my grammar was perfect and I had just the right number of commas in my sentences than that my message was clearly and engagingly communicated. I went on to write the book. Then a few years later, another. Later still I took a technical writing job. Now I have come full circle back to the blog to help me with another project similar in size and impact to the book. But let me back up a bit...

When we moved to Austin several years ago I closed my teaching/retail studio in Atlanta and focused desultorily on my studio work and gallery relationships from Austin. I plodded along, but the joy had left  glass for me, and making the same pieces over and over again was not satisfying. When a shiny object in the form of a new endeavor, a new project--one that actually paid a living wage--presented itself, I reached out and took it. And it was good for awhile. But then it, too, became more and more of a daily grind, and less and less of an adventure. Finally, the only thing that was keeping me in it was fear of losing the income--and the occasional challenging project that made the politics bearable. I considered taking a second retirement (having officially retired from studio glass work to grasp the corporate shiny object), but the aforementioned fear held me back. Last week the choice was taken from me, and I found myself... free. And really, really happy and at peace for the first time in over a year. That was unexpected. I thought I'd be angry, and hurt, and stressed about money, and feel like there was something wrong with me--and I was and did--for about an hour. Since then, it's been nothing but up.

I breathed in and thought about everything I would do with my new free time. I would get caught up on the things I needed to do in the Austin house (like unpack and take back the garden and yard), and in the Montana house (like finally sort through my mother's things  and transform the house from my parents to ours). Between the have-to's, should-do's, and want-to-do's, I had enough to keep me busy for the rest of the lifetime I have, and I was energized. So of course when someone suggested I take on a new project, I jumped at it. 

As in my very first post, I am going to remain mum for now on exactly what the project is. I don't want to tip my hand before I'm ready, or to jinx it. I will say that it is a culmination of everything I have learned and done over the last 50 years. And it has to do with glass. And it is about sharing knowledge. And it is full of passion, and joy, and verve, and poetry. Most of all, it is me being comfortable in my skin, believing in myself, and knowing my own worth.

Stay tuned...