Back to Myself.

A creative finds her way back home.

I’m so relieved 2025 is in the rearview. Though I will say, the very end of it almost made it all the year’s difficulty worth it. We had a great holiday break as a family — I’ve shared some photos here. Everyone was happy and nearly every day was full of life and creativity.

My older daughter asked me what my word was for 2026. I didn’t need to think about it for more than a second: Create.

Last year was about the furthest I’ve ever gotten from my creative self. And that really weighed on the difficulty of the year. Sometimes life has other plans and we get dragged along into murky messes - that’s what 2025 felt like to me. But things began to turn around as the year came to a close and by the time my daughter asked me what my word for 2026 was… I already knew that a new space was opening for me.

In the past- I tried to make my creativity support me financially. I can tell you with sincere expertise that it’s an incredibly exhausting and stressful way to live. That said, I forced it for many, many years. For so long, in fact, that it eventually caused a separation between me and my creativeness. What I know now is that creativity should have no pressure put upon it. I think the definition of the “crazy artist” is simply an artist who has to sell their work. It’s the having to sell that makes the crazy- not the art.

I sold my songs for years- most people know that. But I also went though a time when I sold things I made with material. Lap quilts and sewn artwork. What I made actually sold quite well- and that was the problem. I couldn’t make enough fast enough. It drove me crazy. It took the inspiration and fun out of it. One day when my girls were little, Brad came home and I was flat out on the floor, face down, crying in a mess of material. I couldn’t sew another stitch.

It wasn’t too long after that I started teaching yoga full time instead of part time, then I got certified as a plant-based health coach, then as a personal trainer, and then I got my certification in Corrective Exercise - that last piece really defined my work and I opened up my business as a health coach.

I put my artist self in the corner. My guitar case got dusty and I sold my sewing machine. The years went by and as long as I didn’t think about the loss of my creative self too much, I found I actually enjoyed feeling like a “normal person.” For the first time in my life I was working a normal(ish) job, 5 days a week just like the next guy.

Now and then my daughters would play my music. They would play it for me, or tell me how much they loved this song or that song. I was so thankful then I had spent those cataclysmic (and, only in retrospect, strangely beautiful) years toiling out my songs. I was thankful my music was out in the world.

Then- at the end of 2025 I pulled out a quilt I had never finished. I had been eyeing it for a while but had not brought myself to do much with it. It was huge, actually- much bigger than a lap size. I decided one day to finish it on an old sewing machine we still had hanging around. Brad was always complaining of not having a snuggly blanket on the couch for late night TV watching so this would be a perfect Christmas gift. I listened to music and sewed away during Christmas break. Often with my kids around me doing their creative endeavors.

Another time over the break my older daughter and I sat around with a guitar and sang my songs. My younger daughter came in and asked if I could play Orion- and she sang the whole thing, word for word.

We also baked, and my younger daughter made fancy cappuccinos with our new espresso machine. We ate lots of stuff I usually don’t. Freshly baked cinnamon rolls and other brilliant things you can make with dough. The art of baking is as inspired as growing veggies in the garden, I thought - as I cleaned out the last cucumbers and lettuce from the garden boxes.

We took long walks on the beach and at the bluffs with Marv. (When I carried him because he seemed tired Brad asked me how I expected Marv to become a man if he couldn’t experience persevering through some fatigue.)

Anyway- look. What I realized these last weeks is this: art and creativity, away from the struggle …it was still there waiting for me. Just waiting patiently for me to figure it out. To seal in this realization, I bought myself a new sewing machine and started sewing a new quilt. As I did I thought about my garden and plans to grow more food. I pulled out my favorite recipe books and mulled over all the things I wanted to make. I spent time with other inspiring books that I’d set aside for far too long. I knitted for a while and sewed some more and picked up my guitar again for a few minutes. These actions fulfill me and yet I had abandoned them. It happens.

My creative spirit has been in Winter for many years. But seasons turn. And my Winter, I believe, is coming to an end. I can feel the interconnectedness with my family- my parents, husband and children who identify my creative self as simply their daughter, wife and mother. In other words, to them, it’s just who I am. They have cherished and held that part of me always in their hearts and somehow kept it alive for me when I, myself, could not. Thank you family. I love you so much.

I guess another word I could use for 2026 is Balance. (That’s my older daughter’s word.) Finding the balance between work and art and also the places they intersect….
…it should prove to be an interesting year.

And so…with that. I can now ask you…what’s YOUR word for 2026?

xoxo