you are there ~ i am here

 

These past few weeks I have been averaging about five hours of sleep in a night, this by choice...giving up sleep for time in the studio, to watch half of a movie, to edit photos, to catch up here and there, and it is all worth it, even though I doubt there will ever be a time I will feel caught up with all that I have and want to do, no matter how much sleep I get.  When I get only a few hours a sleep at night I lose out on remembering my dreams, I miss that, but there's more time for daydreaming.  I have been daydreaming about where life will take me in the upcoming days, weeks, years.  Where will I be in a year from now?  I am hoping not here in this little town, after a whole year living here I am certain this is not where I want to live.  But where?  I don't know!  I feel pulled in many directions, I want to live in a city where I can walk out and meet friends for lunch, I want to live in the country where there is nothing but the sky & land surrounding me, I want to live in a place close to all those I love...but how?   It's not an easy feeling, knowing that I don't love where I live, it's frustrating, and can easily be criticized, but please, this is my path I am walking.   I don't regret moving here, it has been a wonderful experience, I am grateful,  but I am feeling ready to find a place that I want to put down my own roots and paint my walls blue.   where, where, where?    I want to be there now!   (or as I would say to my daughter when she is acting impatient & selfish...  "I want an Oompa Loompa NOW daddy")!    so, I have to trust that everything will be as it should when and as it should and just keep on walking forward, stopping here and there to take a photo, admire the clouds, splash in the water, and sleep to dream... 

anyhow.   These self portraits seem to sum up how I am feeling lately.

Where are you?     thank you for hearing me.

Comments

[Sarah Whitmire]

Where am I? I am overwhelmed by a sea of courage from my fellow kindred spirits and wondering how it is that they do not yet see themselves as brave.

[Stephanie Lee]

I'm openly and willingly in between the world of certainty and surrender. It's not as scary as I thought though the truth is I find that even in my mostly grateful beating heart that envy is rearing it's head more than I imagined I had in me. I'm admitting it...I can't believe it!! I read of women who are so connected - to other women and their purpose and their art and their writing - and I wonder if I'm blind. I feel SO connected when I'm not listening to the connected words of others....a sign of my need to listen WITHIN...for when I don't, I feel I need to stop doing everything I'm doing that so many are doing so much better than I. Let them have the glory they deserve and let me just be here quietly tending to simple tasks that cannot be done "better" or "worse".

So...this is where I am. Sitting patiently with the contradiction of peace and the ache of comparison and I am amazed that i am here. I thought I was so much more grown up that that!!

I will hold the vision of a home where your heart is nailed to the walls...where you plant trees with your young ones and water them with laughter and watch them grow grow grow taller than the clouds...where their branches reach laterally to soak up the cool of the blue on your radiateing, pulsing-with-joy walls. :)

(I wish there was an emoticon for a heart) :)

[Joanna Brooks]

just downloaded a brochure from art fest and decided to look at some of the teachers sites. I like this PAINTING! I am just a beginning mixed media "artist". I have been doing art quilts for years and last summer a friend showed me some of her stuff and I love it. It's a struggle for me to let myself go with what my heart is telling me and not listen to my "perfectionist" brain.

Look forward to meeting you at Artfest 2009 or 2010?

Joanna

[Joanna Brooks]

woops! Forgot to say I am in Atascadero, CA on the beautiful central coast between Santa Barbara and SF. I too often decide to use sleep time for other things. And it usually catches up with me at some point as I have a day job...grrr!LOL6t

[FRANCESCA]

I'm exactly where I want to be HOME!! with my partner and 2 adorable girls.
I have always lived in my little village where everyone knows me .

Im also lucky to live in a National Park, we are surrounded by a circle of mountains to protect us, its very beautiful ,and the sea is only 9 miles away.

When I was a little girl I used to look over at the beautiful stone houses and dream that I would live there one day .
Well my dream! came true! I now live in the beautiful stone house .I love my house, I'm so proud of it .

Your dream house is out there! When the time is right it will happen for you.

Love and hug from sesga xx

[FRANCESCA]

I cant believe you are doing a blog giveaway! with one of your amazing paintings !!!.
please put my name in the draw.
Love from sesga xx

[Delia]

i am smiling because i just sent you an email telling you that for my birthday this year, i am going to gift myself one of your paintings. i stumbled over here and found this post a moment later--serendipity, no? Perhaps a stroke of luck will get me this beautiful painting of yours...open your heart, indeed. that is exactly where i am & where i have been since last summer. my birthday yesterday was about the opening up of a "wishing" year for me and i am feeling such wild inner weather...i know you will find your "home". for me, it continues to be this little white house in the burbs where i was born and raised and now am raising my three kids. i wanted to move terribly about a year ago and life circumstances have kept me here--all it did was make me re-root myself where i am in this heavy soil my parents once claimed as theirs. *i*am*here* and wish you the all the best in finding your place in the world.
Love,
D.

[Jo Wholohan]

Where am I???? Home with my family, I love the peaceful part of the world we live in, quiet to be with my thoughts and my girls :))

I adore your latest painting misty!!!!

[Laura]

I love your work.

Where am I? On the same sleep schedule. :) I find there is so much in life to experience, and so few hours in the day to fit them in! And still, I find myself stuck somewhere between the desire to do and the desire to just BE. But I am learning....learning to listen to my heart. Learning to jump, knowing that the net will appear. Learning that it is ok to live with the questions without having to know the answers.

Laura

[Lee Anne Wallace]

alone and waiting. while i reside in san jose, i live in a box of paints. i am at home in a suitcase of ephemra. my heart has been broken in so many pieces in the last three months that i can't find them anymore. some are in new jersery, some in iowa, some are in san diego while a big chunk rides around in a beat up van. and yet, i find peace in the paint an solace in the ephemra. i know that it's summer but in my soul it's fall, waiting for things to die, people, relationships, knowing that all too soon the winter will cover up the death and the snow will look like a wonderland. I don't know where the spring will find me. So, today, i am alone and waiting.

[Melinda Downing]

I'm in my house, in Fresno (I know.....) in my blue room that is my studio. I've been here in Fresno my whole life and I stay because my family and my business is here, I stay because I know I can leave, and I do. Italy, Yosemite, tomorrow the beach. But I always come back to this place, which although not ideal.... is home and I figure that if I lived somewhere perfect and yummy... them maybe my little out of town adventures would not be as special as they are now.

[Pat]

I'm enjoying a hot hazy afternoon in suburban Maryland. A friend and I had a quick art moment before heading to the pool to cool off. The Washington DC area is a great place to soothe the soul of an artist. Museums, art shows, and festivals, are only a few of the wonderful things here.
Now if only we could get wonderful talent like yours to come this way, our hearts would really soar!.

[Kim Henkel]

I am here at my home surrounded by mountains and sun and wild beings. I am here content but excited about what life is showing me new everyday. I am here with my newly acquired desire to paint and draw, as up to now I did not know that I could. But most of all I am here with my girls and my husband in a home full of love and a desire to embrace life the way that we choose to live it. My home and my happiness flow together.

[Erin Gergen Halls]

...what a timely question.
i am at home, at the edge of the woods on the bank of the creek.
i have solitude, as my babies are gone for 4 days. my 2yr.old has never been gone before. it is quiet and lonely and refreshing and daydream inducing.
i am here and i am nowhere. i am looking back and looking forward and i am lost in the moment.
i am at an age or time in my life when i am unbelievably grateful for my life as a mother, a wife and an artist. it is as though everything i ever dreamed about becoming as a child has been bestowed unto me.
but i am also keenly aware of what will most likely never be. would i really even want it? i dont know. i will never live the life of a bohemian artist with a loft in new york or an apartment in paris. would i give up my creek and woods and studio where i work surrounded by my children for that? well, of course not...but i miss feeling that other possibilities are "out there".

does that make sense to anyone but me?

[Jonna]

i am nowhere,
i am everywhere,
i am lost,
i am found.

[shari]

i don't know where i am on my path. i feel a bit lost but still loving where the everyday takes me. love the portraits. xox

[Nikki]

Well you know where I am and it is lovely here.. I think Vermont could be a possibility for you both. Tons of country and clean living, lots of art and well us of course... Think about it. Also it is a straight shot from here to Erie, 8hrs on I-90. Hmmm... Miss you... N

[KathyL]

I am a silent reader of your blog and have been for some time. Your art and words have been such an inspiration to me as I emerge from my own cocoon. But where am I? The easy answer is living in a suburb of Chicago with three children and three greyhounds. The more truthful answer, I am searching for a place of quiet solitude to explore my inner feelings and maybe, just maybe transfer them into my art. Alas, as m children are in their early teens, solitude is elusive. I take great comfort in your words though, they are peaceful....

k

[Laurie G. (morningk)]

Hi Misty. I am sitting in my air-conditioned house on a hot Sacramento summer's day enjoying an outdoor view of patio furniture I finally bought to which I added fun lime-green pillows....Feeling an absolute mix of melancholy that life seems to pass by and children grow up so quickly but also great joy and pride seeing my boys (16, 10, 5) each reach milestones and happily explore the world.

[Amanda]

I am in Melbourne, Australia. Stuck inside on this winters day with an unhappy two y.o and his 4 y.o sister. I know that I love them because I am still here. But boy is it hard to LIKE them sometimes!!!I would love to win your beautiful painting, of course!

[Sharon @ norah'S]

I am here in the moment. Sometimes my moment is spent in the swing watching chickens. Sometimes my moments is at my desk enjoying art. And sometimes I'm right here in the moment reading your words and daydreaming over your beautiful paintings.

[Kate Robertson]

Where am I, I think I am at a crossroads of my old life and what I want it to be. I am headed to New Mexico on a journey next week that will involve several things that really scare me. They are things I want to do but out of my comfort zone. I think in life you need to continue to do things that scare you. What a wonderful gift you are giving away, the painting is lovely.

Kate

[Michelle]

Where am I?? All over the place, but also exactly where I should be! I live in a beautiful home, in a beautiful area in New Zealand with my wonderful husband and gorgeous son. But, my family is in Australia and I so desperately need to be closer to them. My mum isn't well and being so far away from her breaks my heart, but we moved here for many good reasons, and it has proved to have been a good move for us. Like you, I too despair of ever finding the perfect place to live that has the combination of closeness to family, good work opportunities, country living but close to a big town, access to activities and a great climate! Does it even exist and could we afford it if we found it??!! I believe yes! thank you for offering such a generous giveaway - my fingers are crossed.

[Jenny]

I am a young 34 yr old recovering from an early mid-life crisis (at 31) that drove me out of suburbian MD to the rolling hills, blue skies and open air of central New York. I, like you, found myself asking the same question this week. Is this where I want to be when so many that I love are so far away? Is this the place I will lay my roots? Is this the next part of my story? I can't pull myself away from the stillness, but oh how I miss what the city has to offer. I Think I will always be restless, but through its struggle I intuitively know that it helps me to grow.

[Trish]

I am poised between sleeping and wakefulness, in my blue bedroom with its gauzy white curtains and a light breeze lifting them. The air outside is heavy with summer damp--July is full-blown and finicky here in the northeast and I love it, crave its weight, relish steamy afternoons listening to people complain "It's not the heat, it's the humidity."

Love your work. Just love it.

Pick me! Pick me!

Peace-
Trish from Rochester, NY