Already it is well into the fall. The fall always feels to me like the beginning of the year, more so than January 1st ever has. The fall is when I look back on the year before, reevaluate, set goals, make intentions for the year to come.

Often, I go down to the water and write words on stones and chuck them into the waves of Lake Okanagan. They are prayers, wishes. Things I am looking to find.

But for the past few years, with me alone at home with 2 small children and a partner who has had to work 70+hours a week to pay the bills, I have felt very close to losing my mind. I am tired of having too few moments for reflection, tired of doing all the home stuff myself while stealing too-small slivers of time for my own creativity. I am tired of renting a house where my daughter, a devout cat-lover, can't get a cat and where addicts shoot heroine across the street.

And see, it's not even THAT, really. I can live with the drug addicts. I actually like them. And I'm tremendously grateful for our little house - we're close to the water, we have trees across the road, a little deck to sit on in the sun. And those slivers? I work well withing them. Some of my best songs have been written while my kids were napping. Something else is wrong, something I can't quite name. It is about me. About something that hasn't been allowed to live yet. I keep seeing myself in a different life.

I've been hitting a wall for some time now. I am just not sure how to do life here in this city, how to manage everything, how to keep holding on to the things in my heart, or, converserly, how to let go. I've been looking for anwers to so many questions for what feels like a good, long time.

And so here's the thing: I am declaring this my year of BIG changes for the better.

I don't even know what this means, really.

I know it has something to do with doing more and dreaming less. I know it has to do with seeking some support for my tragectory instead of plodding along all alone, which is my usual way. I know it has something to do with letting go of some fear of failure, and some perfectionist tendencies, and getting my creative work out into the world, come hell or high water.

For the next year, I will be writing about this on my blog. Somehow, by stating this out loud, I feel I am committed to finding a way to make it happen. There's a saying I have typed out and posted above my desk: LEAP AND THE NET WILL APPEAR. I still don't see the net. But I am leaping.

I'll keep you posted...

Today I gave Ella (age 4) a small, pale yellow chewable vitamin and told her to eat it. Ella: What will it taste like? Me: I think it'll taste like lemon. Ella: I think it'll taste like moon.

The alley cat comes.
She looks like a ghost floating
across the grass in the mornings
before the sun has been pulled
through the trees.

So it has come to this again:
one small blessing named, counted,
forgetting yourself in all the usual places.
The cat curls around the table leg,
peeks around the corner of the house.
You want to walk through life this way too--
as thought the morning were an open door,
as thought the light brought something with it.

-September 18th, 2009