My report from the trenches of Art Lab

My dear reader, I am here reporting to you from the trenches. It’s 98 degrees Fahrenheit on this pool deck/rooftop overlooking the Sarasota bay. From my vantage point, I can behold the Gulf of Mexico from three directions, making this rooftop view my downtown favorite, bar non. I once had a date up here with an Israeli, who concurred with my observation that there is something distinctly Telavivian about this rooftop—the way the city looks from its height, the turquoise ocean just a stone’s throw away, the new buildings of glass and white stucco, the narrow alleys that divide the new buildings from the old, as though one may walk through Alice’s looking glass, gliding through past, present and future over the course of a single, striding step.

I am overjoyed to report to you that as of 9:48 PM, I have sold SIX pre-orders for my poetry book! I have talked with exuberant clarity about why I am here and what has lead me to this moment. I have laughed with a mischievous twinkle in my eye (with the delayed reaction of shock and confusion) when a fellow poet asked me if the “freelancing” which I am blessed to do on increasing occasion is of the “legal” variety. (“I’m a writer!” I proclaimed! Perhaps the bikini top I chose to wear may not have helped my case where prudence is concerned, but have I mentioned that it’s 98 degrees out at almost 10:00 at night?)

One of my favorite things about tonight is the number of questions I have received about my process. Why and how and when and for what purpose? What drives me, what fuels me, and did I study the practice formally?

I could talk of such things for a lifetime and longer. How blessed I am to have met such spiritual, curious, and life-affirming individuals.

Tomorrow morning I have another timeline-shifting opportunity to sit with another creative for the purpose of putting pen to paper on their story. More to come on what’s in the works.

But let me just say, here and now, that life is finally beginning to mirror all those intentions I planted a year ago and longer.

I used to often use the metaphor of walking on a tightrope through life; eyes forward, chest up, don’t look down for fear of falling. But now, suddenly, like Alice drinking her drinks and eating her cakes, I’m standing so tall that the tightrope looks like a bit of dental floss.

Imagine that.