The line: ‘The events of my life have trained me to expect the ceiling to cave in, so when I start to dream wildly and ambitiously, the voices of doubt and fear immediately chime in.’ has brought tears to my eyes, because I can relate so deeply.
Daring to have ambitious dreams when you’re constantly sick is, as you perfectly put, a tango with fear. I’m currently in the process of trying to learn that tango after being bedbound for 2 years, slowly trying to figure out how to ‘live’ again in this sick body in a world that does not appreciate it. It’s hard and exhausting. I have writing book dreams and you give me the hope everyday I can do it too. I can’t wait to read this next year. I can imagine how hard it was to shelf the dream for so many years and then build up the courage to revisit it again. Thank you for both your books (!!!!!) and your newsletter, discovering you a few years ago when I was at my most unwell was perhaps one of the most transformative moments for me as a sick young person. Sending love to you always - sorry for such a long comment I am just so moved by you, this piece & the book reveal. I admire you, and your outlook, always ❤️
Exactly...to the point that I have to remind myself that you have to dream to keep going. Dreaming is the most necessary part to my existence...I need to think about this!
"It means living safe and small, always hedging against the worst-case scenario."
Earlier this year I left my job, the only one I had ever known in my adult life. It would've been safe to stay, but I felt myself getting smaller, getting quieter, not caring about the content of the meetings for which I had been present. I felt the exhaustion and the bitterness starting to seep in. Safe meant asleep, meant staying in the rut, meant feel unappreciated and taken for granted and fighting, always fighting, for what, some place else, is freely given. Once I allowed myself to contemplate leaving a peace came over me. I knew I would have to jump, sight unseen. It was better than staying asleep. My dreams had conformed to the place I had stayed all of those years - I am learning to allow them to grow big again. Thank you for sharing this reflection - and congratulations on this newest book! *preordered*
The way you dream language into being is magical, Suleika! The way you navigate the being human with the obstacles of illness is art itself. The way you tango pain and grief into dance is a bold and powerful practice. I’m super grateful for the community you’ve created here and am sending healing drool from the hounds. So much love, artist friend. ♥️
I love today’s post. It meshes with what I’ve been thinking about for the past week or so. I grew up with an emotionally abusive father. From the time I was a little girl until he passed when I was a middle-aged woman, I was constantly criticized. This would’ve destroyed many women, but by nature I’m a fighter, so I fought my way out of the war zone. Through my years of therapy, mindfulness practice, forgiveness, and gratitude, I’ve been able to forgive my father, BUT sometimes the part of me that believed I was not good enough emerges. Just out of the blue I will feel, ” Is my work good enough? Do those people really want me, do they love me?”
I remember watching an interview with Dominick Dunne, in which he spoke about his abusive father and how even in his 80s he still carried those wounds, those memories. Reading about your years of illness is so intensely present. It makes me realize that perhaps many of us carry doubt, and we just have to push on through. You certainly do. Bless you, dear Susu.
Ah Dominick Dunne - I just read his nephew's book - Griffin Dunne The Friday Afternoon Club and highly recommend it. It is a challenge overcoming bad parenting and freeing oneself from its grip. Congrats to you for getting therapy and climbing out of the vortex - don't let it pull you back in. Gratitude is the forgiving attitude! xoxo
When Samarra mentioned that she was storing her mother's art for years, I was reminded of my own storage unit that contains many memories and unused items (my father's, my aunt's, my daughter's). Two such items are beautiful ruby glass ginger jars. They were made in the 1940s by Consolidated Glass in Coraopolis, PA (they went out of business in the 1960s). My dear Aunt Mary, who passed away in 2021 at the age of 100, bought them as a gift for her mother with her first paycheck. For many, many years the ginger jars sat on my grandmother's fireplace mantel. Somehow they have managed to make their way to me, wrapped and stored away. I love them. I love the story behind them. My aunt went to secretial school at Robert Morris College back in the 40s and was a career woman. She was the secretary to Mr. Dayton of Dayton-Hudson department stores which eventually opened Target. I am going to pull those jars out of storage and fill them with LED twinkle lights. I think I will place them on my bureau so I can enjoy them in the evenings as I unwind in my bedroom from my long days. Thank you, Suleika, as always, a wonderful prompt. And I pre-ordered your book!
Terri, your story of these ruby glass ginger jars, and all the details, was so inspiring and exciting. I love the details, the history, the evolution and the twinkle lights-genius.
repurposing is an art of living- working with young people on a verge- I repurpose myself- to listen- knowing each voice is unique and each story untold to my ears--sent with love.
Suleika I preordered your book as soon as I saw it on Facebook and I CANNOT WAIT!! Samarra, your art is wonderful and I am now following you on IG. I'm also an artist, but like Suleika, I am always wandering through life wondering when the other "medical"shoe will drop and keep me from accomplishing something. Medical issues have delayed or radically changed what I dreamed of for myself several times so far. I live with a gnawing fear that my art will never see the light of day, or at least I won't be here to see that happen. What will the next MRI show? But I always remind myself that my life has far more joy because I'm creating and it doesn't really matter if I don't end up meeting the goals I have as a designer as long as I am loving the process.
Someone once said to me, “Avoiding bad news doesn’t make it less bad. It makes you less prepared.” I am confident, even if you aren’t, that you will have a successful book launch. You can use these six months to make your contingency plan for all the possibilities. Can you do embargoed interviews, or record videos, or delegate book tour representatives? It might seem a little macabre, but it’s only just in case, not throwing in the towel.
Oops. I was born. Take that for a starter. What? Born. And bearing on my forehead a kiss from life herself. Aren’t we all? Each one of us precious. Then life mines us, distills us, keeps knocking at our door(heart) sighing(or screaming) “alchemy is today’s menu, let us dine” and we open our door, or slam it shut. Life patiently(or not so) waits on the welcome mat, knocking again. “Let me in, we have work to do, to play. At 76 I am listening to life’s vast array of sounds and composing music to sail on, stay afloat, signal to others “we have what it takes” to meet this Beauty, this kiss on the forehead, and live life. 🙈🏮
Christopher Cross's song comes to mind - Sailing - please listen to it - mesmerizing. it's not far to paradise... Alchemy - I love that word and @Suleika provides such deep meaning to it! A Kiss on the Forehead to us ALL.
You are an old soul Suleika (I actually started to type your name as Souleika!). Thank you for always sharing your hard-earned wisdom with us here and with the world. Thank you for enriching our lives.
And thank you for the intro to Samarra Khaja--I absolutely LOVE her. Have already shared her electrical box mural on my Facebook page! Like you, she's another exquisite earth being, bringing much-needed joy and beauty to our world!
I’ve always had a complicated relationship with jewelry—I love it, especially earrings, but can never keep track of it! Over the years I’ve lost too much to count, and tend to just keep re-wearing the same pieces like metallic or jeweled security blankets. But when my mom died 3 years ago, I inherited a vast quantity of jewelry, of many types. I donated a lot of the necklaces to a local senior center, but the earrings were all mixed up, so I spent a lot of time sorting through them, trying to find matching pairs, thinking a single earring would be useless. But then I discovered online that with the help of jewelry pliers, single earrings can be transformed into charms for necklaces or bracelets! I’m really looking forward now to making new items from the earrings my mom wore and collected over so many years of her life (she died at age 96).
I can so relate to your single earing plight. I have lost so many single earings that I could fill a book with the stories of my earings' misadventures. That is a good idea.
"...living safe and small..." is what I have been doing the past 20 years. One of my favorite books as a child (well, if truth be told, it still is) was a book by Wanda Gag called, "Millions of Cats." I have an acrylic painting that I painted back in the early 1990's and I hate it. It's big, too big. My then relationship, thought I "should paint on larger canvas." I was comfortable with my goache watercolors, painting, but, he bought me this huge canvas, acrylic paints and I painted a scene from Maine, where we had just visited. He had it professionally framed...and I hated it. That relationship is over (oh, and another one too) and it is time to cut that piece up into something I love. What a freeing notion. Suleika and Samarra, thank you both for reminding me to live large, live in freedom.
Congratulations on the new book! I love your reflections as well as your summary on your current MO. Also a belated thank you for your exhibition in Frenchtown. Visited on its final day, thanks to your reminder in that Sunday’s post. Loved it loved it loved it. Loved it. Love you and your mother, and I’m grateful for the glimpse that you have provided us into Hope and creativity along the way.
Just lovely. How you have looked into yourself and have accepted a lot of things but learned how to repurpose them to accomplish new and wonderful things. And your openness and willingness to share is so greatly therapeutic to me and helps me approach things in a different way.
Thank you for Samarra's story and her really wildly-colored whimsical cats. Please express my delights to her.
Bless you Suleika. You are a beautiful soul.♥️♥️🐈🐈♥️♥️
The line: ‘The events of my life have trained me to expect the ceiling to cave in, so when I start to dream wildly and ambitiously, the voices of doubt and fear immediately chime in.’ has brought tears to my eyes, because I can relate so deeply.
Daring to have ambitious dreams when you’re constantly sick is, as you perfectly put, a tango with fear. I’m currently in the process of trying to learn that tango after being bedbound for 2 years, slowly trying to figure out how to ‘live’ again in this sick body in a world that does not appreciate it. It’s hard and exhausting. I have writing book dreams and you give me the hope everyday I can do it too. I can’t wait to read this next year. I can imagine how hard it was to shelf the dream for so many years and then build up the courage to revisit it again. Thank you for both your books (!!!!!) and your newsletter, discovering you a few years ago when I was at my most unwell was perhaps one of the most transformative moments for me as a sick young person. Sending love to you always - sorry for such a long comment I am just so moved by you, this piece & the book reveal. I admire you, and your outlook, always ❤️
Never be sorry for long comments! Sending love right back to you. ❤️
I highlighted the same spot-on passage ❤️
Wow - that line brought tears to my eyes too. My toddler have a life limiting disease and was lucky to see his second birthday.
I’m really looking forward to this book. Having a creative outlet of writing has been so healing.
Sending a big hug to anyone reading this who is fighting some big battles ❤️
Exactly...to the point that I have to remind myself that you have to dream to keep going. Dreaming is the most necessary part to my existence...I need to think about this!
"It means living safe and small, always hedging against the worst-case scenario."
Earlier this year I left my job, the only one I had ever known in my adult life. It would've been safe to stay, but I felt myself getting smaller, getting quieter, not caring about the content of the meetings for which I had been present. I felt the exhaustion and the bitterness starting to seep in. Safe meant asleep, meant staying in the rut, meant feel unappreciated and taken for granted and fighting, always fighting, for what, some place else, is freely given. Once I allowed myself to contemplate leaving a peace came over me. I knew I would have to jump, sight unseen. It was better than staying asleep. My dreams had conformed to the place I had stayed all of those years - I am learning to allow them to grow big again. Thank you for sharing this reflection - and congratulations on this newest book! *preordered*
The way you dream language into being is magical, Suleika! The way you navigate the being human with the obstacles of illness is art itself. The way you tango pain and grief into dance is a bold and powerful practice. I’m super grateful for the community you’ve created here and am sending healing drool from the hounds. So much love, artist friend. ♥️
Healing drool from the hounds. ❤️
We Woof You. Always. ♥️♥️♥️🐾🐾🐾
PS love the furry felines!!
I love today’s post. It meshes with what I’ve been thinking about for the past week or so. I grew up with an emotionally abusive father. From the time I was a little girl until he passed when I was a middle-aged woman, I was constantly criticized. This would’ve destroyed many women, but by nature I’m a fighter, so I fought my way out of the war zone. Through my years of therapy, mindfulness practice, forgiveness, and gratitude, I’ve been able to forgive my father, BUT sometimes the part of me that believed I was not good enough emerges. Just out of the blue I will feel, ” Is my work good enough? Do those people really want me, do they love me?”
I remember watching an interview with Dominick Dunne, in which he spoke about his abusive father and how even in his 80s he still carried those wounds, those memories. Reading about your years of illness is so intensely present. It makes me realize that perhaps many of us carry doubt, and we just have to push on through. You certainly do. Bless you, dear Susu.
Ah Dominick Dunne - I just read his nephew's book - Griffin Dunne The Friday Afternoon Club and highly recommend it. It is a challenge overcoming bad parenting and freeing oneself from its grip. Congrats to you for getting therapy and climbing out of the vortex - don't let it pull you back in. Gratitude is the forgiving attitude! xoxo
When Samarra mentioned that she was storing her mother's art for years, I was reminded of my own storage unit that contains many memories and unused items (my father's, my aunt's, my daughter's). Two such items are beautiful ruby glass ginger jars. They were made in the 1940s by Consolidated Glass in Coraopolis, PA (they went out of business in the 1960s). My dear Aunt Mary, who passed away in 2021 at the age of 100, bought them as a gift for her mother with her first paycheck. For many, many years the ginger jars sat on my grandmother's fireplace mantel. Somehow they have managed to make their way to me, wrapped and stored away. I love them. I love the story behind them. My aunt went to secretial school at Robert Morris College back in the 40s and was a career woman. She was the secretary to Mr. Dayton of Dayton-Hudson department stores which eventually opened Target. I am going to pull those jars out of storage and fill them with LED twinkle lights. I think I will place them on my bureau so I can enjoy them in the evenings as I unwind in my bedroom from my long days. Thank you, Suleika, as always, a wonderful prompt. And I pre-ordered your book!
I love this Terri. ❤️
I love imagining the fairy lights in the jars. That is a great idea and a lovely way to let the objects have a renewned life.
Terri, your story of these ruby glass ginger jars, and all the details, was so inspiring and exciting. I love the details, the history, the evolution and the twinkle lights-genius.
Beautiful, Terri!
Great idea for the jars!
repurposing is an art of living- working with young people on a verge- I repurpose myself- to listen- knowing each voice is unique and each story untold to my ears--sent with love.
Suleika I preordered your book as soon as I saw it on Facebook and I CANNOT WAIT!! Samarra, your art is wonderful and I am now following you on IG. I'm also an artist, but like Suleika, I am always wandering through life wondering when the other "medical"shoe will drop and keep me from accomplishing something. Medical issues have delayed or radically changed what I dreamed of for myself several times so far. I live with a gnawing fear that my art will never see the light of day, or at least I won't be here to see that happen. What will the next MRI show? But I always remind myself that my life has far more joy because I'm creating and it doesn't really matter if I don't end up meeting the goals I have as a designer as long as I am loving the process.
I have lived with fear & what if for far too long
I have allowed fear to run the a huge part of my life it’s been so long now it had become an added appendage & this has resulted in
having been overly cautious at times & then completely reckless at other times sabotaging dreams giving up before it could all go wrong
I dream big then run fearful of what if I succeed or if I do the happiness will be fleeting and as you said the ceiling will cave in
Your eloquent honest writing resonates so deeply I’m so very grateful for what you share your words are filled with hope & truth
And I’ve preordered your book if feels like magic waiting to be unleashed
"it had become an added appendage" an interesting image.
Someone once said to me, “Avoiding bad news doesn’t make it less bad. It makes you less prepared.” I am confident, even if you aren’t, that you will have a successful book launch. You can use these six months to make your contingency plan for all the possibilities. Can you do embargoed interviews, or record videos, or delegate book tour representatives? It might seem a little macabre, but it’s only just in case, not throwing in the towel.
Oops. I was born. Take that for a starter. What? Born. And bearing on my forehead a kiss from life herself. Aren’t we all? Each one of us precious. Then life mines us, distills us, keeps knocking at our door(heart) sighing(or screaming) “alchemy is today’s menu, let us dine” and we open our door, or slam it shut. Life patiently(or not so) waits on the welcome mat, knocking again. “Let me in, we have work to do, to play. At 76 I am listening to life’s vast array of sounds and composing music to sail on, stay afloat, signal to others “we have what it takes” to meet this Beauty, this kiss on the forehead, and live life. 🙈🏮
I love this David, thank you. Choked me up and gave me heart.
Christopher Cross's song comes to mind - Sailing - please listen to it - mesmerizing. it's not far to paradise... Alchemy - I love that word and @Suleika provides such deep meaning to it! A Kiss on the Forehead to us ALL.
Both pieces here are searing—and they sear because of the clarity and calm with which they are written. The quiet. The authenticity. The soul.
You are an old soul Suleika (I actually started to type your name as Souleika!). Thank you for always sharing your hard-earned wisdom with us here and with the world. Thank you for enriching our lives.
And thank you for the intro to Samarra Khaja--I absolutely LOVE her. Have already shared her electrical box mural on my Facebook page! Like you, she's another exquisite earth being, bringing much-needed joy and beauty to our world!
I love that....Souleika!!!!!!!
I’ve always had a complicated relationship with jewelry—I love it, especially earrings, but can never keep track of it! Over the years I’ve lost too much to count, and tend to just keep re-wearing the same pieces like metallic or jeweled security blankets. But when my mom died 3 years ago, I inherited a vast quantity of jewelry, of many types. I donated a lot of the necklaces to a local senior center, but the earrings were all mixed up, so I spent a lot of time sorting through them, trying to find matching pairs, thinking a single earring would be useless. But then I discovered online that with the help of jewelry pliers, single earrings can be transformed into charms for necklaces or bracelets! I’m really looking forward now to making new items from the earrings my mom wore and collected over so many years of her life (she died at age 96).
This is wonderful! What a great project.
Susan you have given me a new project.😎I will look for jewelry pliers to create charms too.
I can so relate to your single earing plight. I have lost so many single earings that I could fill a book with the stories of my earings' misadventures. That is a good idea.
"...living safe and small..." is what I have been doing the past 20 years. One of my favorite books as a child (well, if truth be told, it still is) was a book by Wanda Gag called, "Millions of Cats." I have an acrylic painting that I painted back in the early 1990's and I hate it. It's big, too big. My then relationship, thought I "should paint on larger canvas." I was comfortable with my goache watercolors, painting, but, he bought me this huge canvas, acrylic paints and I painted a scene from Maine, where we had just visited. He had it professionally framed...and I hated it. That relationship is over (oh, and another one too) and it is time to cut that piece up into something I love. What a freeing notion. Suleika and Samarra, thank you both for reminding me to live large, live in freedom.
Congratulations on the new book! I love your reflections as well as your summary on your current MO. Also a belated thank you for your exhibition in Frenchtown. Visited on its final day, thanks to your reminder in that Sunday’s post. Loved it loved it loved it. Loved it. Love you and your mother, and I’m grateful for the glimpse that you have provided us into Hope and creativity along the way.
Just lovely. How you have looked into yourself and have accepted a lot of things but learned how to repurpose them to accomplish new and wonderful things. And your openness and willingness to share is so greatly therapeutic to me and helps me approach things in a different way.
Thank you for Samarra's story and her really wildly-colored whimsical cats. Please express my delights to her.
Bless you Suleika. You are a beautiful soul.♥️♥️🐈🐈♥️♥️