Interests: We may have even decorated it comfortably and with all the latest (or most valued antiques) we could possibly acquire, it isn’t our true home and that person is not who we are meant to be. I’ve been at those places of ache and yearning and not wanting to get up and yet I got up and I kept creating just like you can get up and get creating. And I got up and created again and again and again just like I know you can. I chose to do the heart work and set the images within me free. Especially when the last thing I wanted to do was keep going I… got up. I kept going. Even if it took longer than I ever imagined, I took it one slowly lifted heal and one firmly planted toe at a time. I’ve been there: the parent of a child with autism. The parent who fought for her child to be educated and stood up to educrats who didn’t seem to want to listen. I was in rehearsals for a play opening in Los Angeles when Samuel got the diagnosis. I was simultaneously working on my first Shakespeare Festival in Bakersfield. I wrote blog post after blog post and notebook entry after notebook entry. It was these creative adventures that kept me going. I created and I kept going. I’ve lost my brother, the one only fourteen months younger than me who I spent my whole life protecting. He had down’s syndrome, after all, and we had a unique almost inexpressible bond. I created his Celebration of Life. I didn’t know how one was to go about such a thing, so I flew by the seat of my pants and created an event I had no idea would be successful or unsuccessful. A woman I didn’t know approached me afterwards and said, “I was expecting to be so depressed after being here today, but instead, I feel so inspired. Thank you.” I will forever hold in my heart the look in my father’s eyes as he stood beside me and just said, “Thank you.” It was all he could say, just “Thank you.” I forgot to tell you my Mom had declared we wouldn’t have a memorial for my brother as she believed it would be too difficult. In my last moment of advocacy for my beloved brother I defiantly and angrily told my mother, “If it was any of the rest of us were dying, you wouldn’t say this. I will plan the service. I will host the service. John will have a memorial service just like the rest of us will.” Is a Celebration of Life a creative endeavor? Absolutely. I set heart images free, images people will always remember. I also lost a daughter to stillbirth, had a miscarriage, and a nephew with sudden infant death. I wrote poetry for newsletters. I became an editor of a local newsletter and a national newsletter. I created instead of crashing and I created when I felt like crashing. I gave people permission to emote and create and continue to do the same now. I’ve lost church friends when I said I couldn’t abide by the politics of their religious organization and I’ve lost married friends when my marriage failed. Each time I got up and I kept creating. I lost my health to melanoma. A year later, it was basal cell carcinoma. I asked a face painter to work my scar into her art for me. I posed for photographs. I daringly wrote blog posts while my scar was ugly. I wrote of my struggles with my appearance. I took the stage after confessing to my directors I felt self-conscious and understood if they wanted an unscarred person to play my role. I lost other friends to cancer: too many to list here but it started when I was forty and it just keeps happening. This is a price I pay for loving well. I got up and I kept going, I did the heart work and set images I didn’t know existed free. I performed, I sang, I built, I connected, I got up and I kept creating. I had my dearest, closest friend choose to disappear from my life, even or especially at the times when I needed my friend the most. Twice. (Yes, I know. I should have learned the first time.) I got up and I kept going. I cried and I wrote and I cried and I wrote and I cried. I lost the business I built because I was so wrecked from my brother’s death, my son’s diagnosis, my mother’s run-in with cancer and my friend, disappearing when I needed him the most. I got stronger. I eventually felt better and wiser. I got up and I kept going. And I continue to keep going. I learned to see the occasional outstretched hand and take it, even if I wasn’t sure exactly what to do with it. And I continue to learn and grow, grown and learn. I learned to listen to the wisdom inside me because I trusted creative processes to help me to find the way. You know what excites me most of all? It excites me most of all to see the smile on your face as you begin to learn your own truths, create your path and live your way into the life you’ve been meant to live all along. It excites me to see your heart images take form and fly and be born in ways you might not have even considered yet. Claim it, your life. Now begin. The Creative Life Midwife is here to inspire your artistic rebirth. We are so grateful you are here.