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In less than one month, I will be 42 years old. The number flows easily off my tongue. I don’t mind turning 42; in fact, I feel lucky. I hold gratitude for every moment and year I am gifted. I am, however, aware that I am approximately halfway through my life-give or take a few years (hopefully give). “Half-way through my life…” acknowledging that brings my choices, values, and actions into perspective and I fall into a perpetual state of self-reflection. I can’t help but ask myself, how do I want to spend the second half of my life?

Over the last year and a half, we have all been called to attention and propelled into isolation as the world was taken by COVID19. We’ve questioned what we value, how we spend our time, what relationships are important, and what we need to survive. Every tribe and nation on mother earth felt the fragility of the human race deep within their bones; it echoed across cities and towns, no stone was left unturned. Loved ones were lost and strangers brought together, bonded through grief and fear. And while it may not be over yet, hope is on the horizon.

This post isn’t about COVID19 though. This is about me and how I choose to move forward. Once again, how do I want to spend the second half of my life?

I want to let go. I don’t want to be bound by the limitations I put on myself or what the world expects of me. I’ve spent a lifetime making myself small; and for what? My spirit is tall and ready to stretch beyond the boundaries I’ve laid down for myself-boundaries I constructed out of low self-esteem and fear. I’ve suffered my entire life from imposter syndrome; and I’m a habitual people pleaser. That, my friends, is a dangerous combination and one that will keep you in a self-destructive loop for a long time. Also, due to my empathic nature and high sensitivity, I tend to attract a lot of narcissist. (**Insert affirming head nod and raised eye brows here.**) Anyone who has ever dealt with a narcissist knows, they suck the life out of you.

I want to stop, daily, and simply breathe. I fill every moment up so easily, giving myself away to the point of nothing being left. I collapse. I fail. I shatter and slip through my life like sand, struggling to find where the identity that others have given me ends and who I am separate from those roles begins. We are taught to give ourselves 100%, but there is no balance in that. I don’t want that for my children. I preach to them about balance, self-care, self-love, and yet fail to fulfill those things for myself. We learn more from example than from words so… I want to be the example not just the words.

In the last several years I’ve focused my art on botanicals and how they interact with the figure to help tell a story. I’ve been frozen though, questioning whether the work was good, or too sweet, too perfect-wondering about my ability to create anything worthwhile. Art is meant to be raw, challenging and provocative. I’ve managed to produce a few pieces but not many made it past the initial sketches, if they even made it that far. Nothing kills the ability to create like paralyzing fear and self-doubt.

I want to breathe life back into the creative nature that drives me. I am a storyteller. When I forget that, I loose touch with a part of my soul. A few Saturdays ago, in an effort to reclaim my creative voice, I began photographing flowers outside of the Saint Louis Art Museum early in the morning before my shift, thinking that I could use them for inspiration-paying attention to the folds, colors and compositions. I think the organic flow found in nature is poetry.

Today, while looking through those photos, I realized something.

In 2009, I lost my mother to breast cancer. A few weeks ago I drove by our childhood home, discovering that the beautiful gardens my mom had left behind were now gone and the land was in severe neglect. My heart was crushed. I hadn’t expected anyone to keep them as she had kept them. After all, she had somehow turned our backyard in the middle of town into a secret garden. But now, nothing remains of the gardens she left behind. I hadn’t expected the house to look as though she had never been there. An ache settled into my heart I hadn’t foreseen. I wasn’t simply grappling with grief. I was also confronted with this feeling, this knowledge, that every bit of magic that existed in those gardens seemed to have left with her. I had expected it to remain there, waiting for me.

I began taking pictures of botanicals a week after that. I think in an effort to heal the sadness I have in my soul, I tried to subconsciously recreated and capture the magic of those gardens through the lens of my camera. My first revelation: the artwork I had been producing, the artwork that focused on botanicals and nature and how they interact with the figure, I began after she passed and we sold her house. Those works are full of whimsy and magic and I believe it’s because I’ve been trying to capture the magic found within her gardens. Each figure, contains a part of my soul. They don’t need to look like me in order to possess an aspect of myself. They each have a name, a character, a story in which is all their own. But in the end, they come from a part of myself and are therefore a reflection of who I am. Each figure is surrounded and captured within nature, within a garden. I have been chasing my mothers gardens through my artwork for a few years, and hadn’t even realized it.

The magic that I had felt had left with her when I stood outside the decaying fence line around her old home, didn’t leave at all. It evolved. I carried it with me, gently wrapped within the muscular and spiritual fibers of my heart. We all carry pieces of it-my sisters, my children, anyone who loved her. It’s okay that the physical gardens are gone. They were never meant to remain. The magic they held still thrives and will be passed down through photos and memories and the art in which I create.

What does this have to do with moving forward? We can’t move forward without acknowledging and processing the pain in our past. We become stuck in our crumbling reality. Moving forward, I want to honor my mothers legacy. I want to release the magic she instilled within me. I want to capture the magic of the gardens. They continue to grow, thriving in who I am and through my work, I want to release them into the world. There is nothing too precious or too sweet about that. It’s real and honest, full of joy and sorrow.

I will end this here since this post is already longer than I’ve intended, but I feel as if new beginnings usually are. And this, indeed, is a new beginning. I’ve uploaded/shared some older works on this site. This blog isn’t going to be a perfect collection of writings, only full of tutorials or whatever else you think an artists blog should be about. This is a reflection of myself. My goal is that it’s honest and real-showing my work, creative process, who I am, and what inspires me. I want to capture the magic that I know still pulsates in this world. I will share my journey with you, as I learn to carve out time for myself, slowing down to see the beauty in the small spaces and quiet moments. This is my life, created and curated through images, and writings.

Welcome to my garden. It isn’t perfect. It’s still growing.