Re-entering the (Working) World

On jazz, terms of endearment, creative play, creative community, and real mail.

Weekly Wonders

My husband Don shared this video with me last night. Wow, so good. Seven and a half minutes of straight-up wonder and beauty.

The other wonder I want to share with you this week is the checker at our local BriarPatch Food Coop who calls everyone “honeybun,” even the most grumpy and foreboding customers. I absolutely love this!

I love terms of endearment, and I particularly love them doled out willy-nilly to all and sundry. (And I love getting to use “willy-nilly” and “all and sundry” in the same sentence!)

I love these terms of endearment being doled out in this way because it creates more love, connection, and sweetness in the world. And the indiscriminate nature of it suggests unconditional love, which is the highest form of love.

Anyway, it absolutely brightens my day to wind up in her line.

Update from the Wonder Factory

I’m wildly behind on opening my monthly Sketchboxes because I’ve had very little time to practice my own creativity lately, other than writing these lovely missives to you.

This is for three reasons:

1. My health has been flared up and demanding a lot of time and creating unpredictable schedules. But the good news is I’m starting a special diet for 3 weeks that has shown incredibly good results for tons of people in clearing up the gnarly GI symptoms I’ve been having. (Like being up from 2:30 am on one night this week, dealing with my body and being in pain.)

2. I’m relaunching my teaching business after a year and a half away due to the crazy healing journey I was on. It takes a ton of time to set up the courses and offerings again and get all the systems up and running smoothly. And now, it’s time to promote those offerings. Phew! It’s a lot of work. But I’m so grateful to get to teach and facilitate again! So excited.

3. We’re still taking steps toward our planned upcoming move this summer to Costa Rica. Insane and wonderful. So much to do.

If you don’t know Sketchbox, it’s a monthly subscription program that my brilliant, amazing, soul-centered coach Tele Darden turned me on to during the depths of my illness. And what a great suggestion that was!

You get a small, curated box of art supplies each month and an instructional video on how to use them. It’s like having a birthday every month. I have loved it.

However, as I said, I’ve gotten totally behind in opening the boxes (and hence have paused my subscription). I just opened the October box which featured black ink and a brush and a pink ink brush pen.

I learned how to make bamboo and what I think of as cherry trees and mountains. And then I threw in some flowers and a bird for good measure. Super fun. This is pure play for me.

About Those Offerings

In case you’re not subscribed to my free Creative Sparks newsletter, I just opened the doors to my new, improved Brilliant Playmates creative community and membership program for artists of all stripes. Come check it out!

Doors are only open for a couple of weeks and I only open the doors once a year. We’ve had a magical time in this community and gotten a lot of exciting art made and made great progress in our creative lives. I’d love for you to join us, if it calls to you.

And now for this week’s Wonder Sparks…

To access these Wonder Sparks, upgrade to a paid subscription (if you haven’t already). And you’ll receive practices and prompts to help you cultivate more wonder, delight, curiosity, and creative play in your life easefully and joyfully.