Alice

"How does one become a butterfly?" She asked pensively. "You must want to fly so much

that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar." Thank you, Constance, for reminding of this

"Alice and Wonderland" quotation.

As we get older we are less inclined to give up comfort for adventure. Risk becomes an essential element in the equation of living. No matter our political persuasion, we acquire things and become conservative. This may not be all bad. It could be nature's way of providing a stable nest, that roost to come home to. It is limiting though, a self imposed boundary, lines we are fearful to cross.

My Other Blog is HERE

They say there are one hundred hookers in Hollywood for every movie actress, for every thousand guitars sold, one might find itself on stage. The fear of failure overpowers the desire for success.

The worst word in the English language is "can't", can not, and the second worse is "won't",

will not. I am hoping that this New Year, 2011 that is upon us, will be a positive year, that our Resolutions will accept the challenges ahead, that we can shed our fears, find strength in ourselves and value in the friendships we have made. Maybe we can do it a little different?

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

I just wanted to say Thank you and I am so glad to have met you all. Merry Christmas and I know that 2011 will be such a very good year! I enjoy reading your blogs, they give me inspiration and ideas and intermingling your life with mine. I am honored and flattered that you read my blogs or even give a whit about me. The world becomes smaller with this sharing and it is comforting to know, although so far apart, we are on this road together.

I have learned so much this past year and in sharing my cancer story, my art story, my life story with you, I have been allowed into your stories. They have grown and we are getting better at telling them. In a way it is all the same story, yours and mine. Told at different times and different vantages, we are all seeking the same thing. We have become friends and I know if you find it you will tell me.

While we wait we hunt. Maybe that is the story. The journey itself and there is no end.

Each time we are so close the goalpost is moved. We anticipate its position only to be fooled.

Life becomes what to do with this trickery. We learn laughter and appreciation that they were only little wounds after all. We get up, dust ourselves off, and do it again. That is the Human Spirit and it is found all over the world. I know, you have told me so.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

New Year's Resolutions?

I feel as though I have been given one more opportunity, one more chance to reinvent myself. I have survived that cancer thing. I almost got run over by a freight train, but didn't.

I once fell sixteen feet off a Church roof onto the concrete below. No soft landing there, and I went on to have lunch! I put my hand into an electrical panel and was thrown clear across the room and got to laugh that one off. Years ago, remind me to tell this story, I was sick beyond belief and the doctors could not even find out what was wrong with me. I was tricked into going to a "faith healer" (I have no faith like that, or at least didn't at the time) and was cured instantly! Seriously. Ten minutes later I was in perfect health after a two week bout with I don't know what. I was supposed to be dead when I was two years old and my brother saved me with animal crackers! Saved by cookies! That is a true story too although I don't remember it. I am sure there were lots of roads I could have taken, maybe even started, that had I travelled them would have been my doom.

I have liked Art all of my life but didn't "do art" until my fiftieth birthday. No near death experience there except that I gave up a successful construction business that was killing me.

One day I just woke up and threw it all away, deciding if I weren't to do it then, when was I going to do it? When would life be perfect and really allow me to do what I wanted? There are two problems with this reasoning: defining "perfect" and knowing what you want.

I am thinking, for my New Years Resolution, on both these blogs of mine, I will investigate

these two issues for me: perfection and knowing what you want out of life. They will clash like school girls but maybe end up dancing like butterflies!