too many bridges

Seven Crows by Alex Colville

A Gathering of Crows
One crow for sorrow,
Two crows for joy,
Three crows for a girl,
Four for a boy,
Five crows for silver,
Six crows for gold,
Seven crows for a secret never to be told.

A painting by Alex Colville. An artist that I grew up knowing about. My grandmother Flo an amazing woman, and an artist herself knew all these guys from her days at Mount Allison. She had framed prints of all of their work hanging in her house. Alex Colville, Lawren Harris Junior, Christopher Pratt. She lived in a house filled to the brim with art and love and she had an incredible influence on me (still does) and of who I've ultimately become. Alex Colville, was like a movie star to me, in my childhood town of Sackville, New Brunswick.

Brrrrrrrr. But I guess I can't really complain as it seems it's cold everywhere. It's way too cold it's the kind of cold that makes me feel sad. I worry and wonder about all the animals wild and otherwise that may be too cold, that aren't properly looked after. I'm hoping & praying that they will all find a warm place to curl up in.

Lots more stuff in my etsy shop. A brand new project, completely out of the blue yesterday, from Chicago big fish company and just when I was beginning to sink into my annual petite hiatus from Customer No Uno (many of the Chinese factories close for a few weeks around this time for Chinese New Year). Honestly this living in the moment and forcing myself (and believe me I struggle with it) to believe that "good things come" is so totally working for me. The other good habit that I'm developing is to only deal with the step or stage of a situation, problem, idea that I'm in. Let me explain - having a penchant for planning (big time) and an inclination to worry and fret because of a misguided idea that somehow doing so will protect me from any possible badness that I can scheme up (and believe me I can come up with a list of 1-99 potential mishaps, drags and outright bad things in a snap). Lets use a big one for an example. Selling my home and moving somewhere (?) else. A thought that when entering my mind causes a wave of nauseousness to instantly sweep over me. So now I scoot that thought out of my head just as quickly as possible and retreat to the step or stage in that gigantic BIG idea that is currently applicable - which is - to work on cleaning out all the excess clutter and stuff and the doody-ing up of this place (painting, cleaning, organizing) so that it will look nice if and when those people come to see it. That's all I need to think about ... right now.

I am crossing only one bridge at a time and always the bridge that's directly in front of me (which is so not my nature) because life has proven over and over to me that the path I'm on may completely change. Just past the next bridge there could be a big ol' detour that sends me down a path that doesn't have a lot of bridges. My nature would be to rent a hypothetical helicopter so that I could get a proper and detailed bird's eye view of every single bridge, obstruction, possible snag, dilemma etc... that potentially could lie ahead and burn the motor out of my little brain worrying and fixing problems that may not ever occur. You get my drift ... what a total waste of time ... and way too angst filled pour moi.

I know MLou's smiling as she reads this. She has helped me so much to get to this place and she continually helps to keep me on track. Love her ... lots.

la la la ... I'm livin' in the moment ... or at least I'm tryin' to.

And hey all you Cancer's out there how's this for a great start to our new year.