Well, I've found a studio. Paid for the first month's rent today, got my keys, the code. Twenty-four hour access. A skylight. And as far as I know, Carlie still wants to share... come to think of it, I forgot to ask the landlord if that was acceptable... I was SO FOCUSED on getting the studio that I probably forgot to ask a few important questions!

You know that feeling you get when you are really very busy, and your time just seems to unspool; every moment is used up. And when someone asks you, "what have you been up to?" you have no answer for them. Not that the things you have been doing are pointless, or useless, or even not worth mentioning; it's just that you are so full of the DOING that you don't have time to process what it is that is being ACCOMPLISHED. That's my life right now. I am cooking and cleaning and preparing to move into a new apartment and into the studio; I have been working long days. I have been studying. I have been preparing myself mentally to launch myself into a new realm of serious creativity and playful business. I have been teaching and playing wallyball and watching movies and walking and dreaming and scheming and wishing that I just had a few more hours every day to write letters and keep in touch with people and be the friend I wish I had.

I'm not saying I don't have friends. I have wonderful friends. But I don't seem to have the time to be a really good friend; I still have the 'Welcome, Baby Girl!' card for my oldest friend's baby (born last October) in my closet. I'm not sure that I have my priorities straight. I am in the process of evaluating, rebalancing. Figuring out what it is in life that I REALLY want. I'm being open to opportunities, serendipitous events (to find out more about this, look up Krumboltz's Planned Happenstance Theory). Being curious, flexible, and optimistic. Being ready.

Good things are happening; I won't get into it. In fact, I think I'm really ready to retire this blog. Not because I'm fed up, or because I don't have time to write, or because I don't think I have valuable things to say. But because I'm ready for it to be done, for it to leave my life and to open up new avenues of creativity. It's been wonderful. I suppose if I ever start travelling again, living abroad again, I'll take it up once again. But for now...

It's been a slice.

Namaste.

I asked my students to write about their Christmas vacations or their new year's resolutions... it wouldn't be fair if I didn't do the same. Here I go...

My New Year's Resolutions for 2010

Be patient and secure in the thought that the universe is unfolding as it should.

Find more purpose and passion in my life.

Eat more colourful foods.

Go back to Maui during the summer, and paint, paint, paint.

Paint, pant, paint... all the time.

Find a studio to share with Carlie.

Uphold my creative dreams as sacred and vital.

Respect my need for rest as much as I respect my need to work and my right to play.

Really understand all of the English verb tenses.

Manage my resources (time, money, food, relationships, inspiration) wisely, gratefully, and joyfully.

Finish more than 50% of what I start.

Defend my choices. Even against my own bitterness and doubts. Defend them!

Continue to be grateful for the goodness and gifts in my life.

Move forward.

Yesterday was mom's 62nd birthday. It was snowing like crazy-- big wet flakes that stuck and weighed down branches and became glued in gobs to my heels as I made my treacherous way from my car to the Hooded Merganser to celebrate. Dave wore a black suit jacket and an unpressed white collared shirt; he looked gorgeous. Mom looked great too. She did a lovely job of her makeup and she wore a glittery black top. She's lost quite a bit of weight lately, and finally seems to be finding her feet again after the last few tumultuous years (leaving Port Edward, trying to sell the house up north, health issues, etc.) Dad was wearing a sweater; I couldn't see much of him across the table, as it was crowded with flowers mom had received for her birthday.

The snow fell and fell; it was dark and we couldn't see much of the lake outside the window. From where I was seated I had a view of the park that ends in the pier, so at least I could view the trees, sticky and weighted down with blobs of Betty Crocker's double-thick vanilla icing.

Dinner was nice. Just the four of us. Champagne. Mom ebullient with the attention, the joy of teasing the waiter, with the phone calls she had received over the course of the day from friends far and wide. We told jokes and read the horoscopes that I had printed out at work for all of us.

After dinner, I went home to get out of my heels and into my snow boots, my play clothes. I met Dave and Carlie back at their house. I drove and Dave and Carie took turns skitching-- a new term to me. (It means that they strapped on their snowboards and I towed them behind the car as they skimmed across lawns and driveways and over snow-shovel piles.) Then we built a family of four snow people, a snow bunny named Gobby, and a giant boosh-face snow man shaking his fist at the Wal-Mart parking lot. Then I went to bed.

A snow day. A happy birthday.

Today I have been teaching my students about blogs. One of them already has a blog, written all in her native language, so that she can share the trials and tribulations of her Canadian life with her family and friends back in her home country.

The lesson has brought up a lot of questions about the purpose of blogging. More than 70,000,000 blogs (and this is a 2007 stat) have been created since 2003. Everyone supposedly has their 'unique perspective', a potential audience out there just dying to know exactly what we have all been up to. A community of likeminded people just waiting to connect . I'm sure.