LOVE – sculpture by Barbara Du Bois

A new year is here.  It seems suddenly.  Quickly, in the blink of an eye, the old is gone and the new is here.

I am ready for the new year.  I am sitting at my desk in my house in Fisherhaven writing my first blog for 2018.  This is the first one in a very long time. I ‘ve been making changes and moves in anticipation of this being the year I focus on what I love to do most : write!

Already old patterns and the demands of earning a living and life in general, stole my creative time yesterday and I missed the opportunity to write on the first day of 2018. Sigh!  I had such good intentions. We all know about those and where they lead!

No new year’s resolutions for me.  I ‘m gonna NIKE – “just do it”.

If I slip up  like yesterday and get side-tracked making meals, answering booking  enquries , doing DIY around the house and allowing work to seep out and devour my time and energy, I will stop.

Stop, right there.  Pause. Then I will straighten my shoulders and smile. I’ll put on Chris Rea’s “Road to Hell” to remind me of those pesky intentions and  I’ll dive in , as I am now, and write away to my heart’s content.

There are stories I want to tell, worlds, characters and situations I want to create.  There are places I want to visit in my mind that I can share with others.  I want to write about the things that touch my heart, things that make me happy or sad.  Things that make me smile or laugh until my belly aches.

Dreaming away on the back of the motorbike on the last day of 2017, I was filled with ideas and impulses for stories and as if the Universe wanted me to know that I am on the right track, the very first e-mail I opened in 2018 was about a short story.  I wrote it many years ago and have a soft spot for it in my heart (as I often do!).

At some stage, on an impulse I dug it up, re-crafted it  and then entered a competition on-line for African writers .  It was a while back – when I am not sure, but there it was again.  Out of the blue, on my screen as an affirmation that this plan of mine to find ways to support what I really love, is going to work.

What I didn’t know was,  that the competition had been suspended in 2016! The e-mail was to let me know that I entered a competition that didn’t exist!  Now that is what I call really amusing – and symbolic and telling on so many levels. But, get this, it is being revived and I am welcome to submit my work.

Ahhh, the writer’s life.  So it is.  I write and write and craft and craft and then I submit it and if I know what is good for me…I forget all about it.  It is not that I don’t love my story or drama or blog or whatever .   I do!  It is not that I don’t wish it well.  I send it away with love and blessings and a deep heart felt prayer that it will find it’s way in this world.

Often, when I least expect it, I get the news.   My heart is glad and grateful and I celebrate for a wee while.

When the news is long in the coming,  I remind myself again and again that the joy is the process, in the creating, in the telling and yes, even in the crafting!

My wish for us all in this new year of our lives is that we will love ourselves enough to spend time on what we truly love and that our endeavours will find their way in this world.