Ocean Soul
Hello, Friends!
Happy New Year! I invite you to click on the link above to enjoy the sounds of the ocean while reading this blog.
I couldn’t be happier to have finally found the time to create a new blog for you. 2023’s been a wild ride for me, and the unprecedented waves we’ve been having along the coast this season are a good metaphor for my life. This is one year I’m glad to leave behind.
I hope this new year finds you healthy and happy. I know all of us have had our challenges in 2023. How good it is to be able to turn the page, so to speak, to a new chapter, a fresh start, a reset.
Yesterday Vern and I took a ride along the coast up to Gualala. It was a gorgeous day. The sun was shining, the coastal breezes were just the right temperature, and the views along the coast were just stunning. I feel so incredibly grateful to be able to live in this gorgeous part of the world.
The new year is a time for reflection and gratitude, and it is with such a heart that I come to you today. Our family has been through a lot this year, culminating with a surgery for Vern. As many of you know, we have been searching for residual cancer in Vern’s body for several years.
We feel so blessed to have wonderful care at UCSF. We have been touched by the kindness and attentiveness of the doctors and staff at this great institution. Vern’s surgery was successful. They found the cancer.
Our journey will continue, however, as they weren’t able to get all of it. It is with gratitude, however, that we have hope and a team that is searching for answers for us. Maybe 2024 will be the year we can finally say he is in remission. That would truly be wonderful.
Thank you for your patience with the lack of blogs here for a while. As you can imagine, life has been maxed out. Between family needs, work, and the holidays, there just really hasn’t been any time or energy left over to blog.
I’m really hoping that this will change here in 2024 and that I will be able to devote more time to my art and the blog. If not, however, I am grateful that I can open myself up to you and share a little bit as time allows. Thank you for joining me on this journey.
“When anxious, uneasy, and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.”
This month I’m happy to share with you this small watercolor painting of the ocean. It’s painted on canvas and was such a treat to paint. It’s so fun to be able to lose oneself in the colors of the sea and imagine the noise of the waves beating on the shores. The ocean has long been a place of refuge for me, and I’ve been blessed to be able to live by it, to sail on it, and to swim in it in my lifetime. I offer its solace to you.
Sometimes I feel like a shadow of myself. I have to retreat from it all and draw deep breaths from nature and surround myself with good things. Beauty is always a source of refreshment for me. A good drink of beauty and withdrawal from it all brings rest to my soul.
I am always so grateful for the stolen moments when Vern and I can go out walking around Fort Bragg or Mendocino. The warm sun and the crisp air always lift the soul and refuel the senses.
I love the color play on the houses, the long shadows, the light that darts around corners. I love the quaintness of the village, the people strolling around hungry for the peace found here at the edge of the earth. How blessed I feel to be parked here, my home.
I hope that your season was full of family, warmth, and love. We were delighted that Sebastian was able to fly home to be with us, and Cedric joined us for the festivities. Madeline was in Bucharest, Romania; Vienna, Austria; and Venice, Italy, over the holiday season. It was wonderful to be able to follow her adventures and to feel her love and presence, even while traveling.
So that’s it for this month’s blog. We send you love and best wishes in 2024. May you be blessed with much love and joy over the coming year.
We send you our most heartfelt wishes. It is with gratitude that I think of each of you. Thank you so much for subscribing to my blog. You make such a difference in my life.
From my ocean home to yours.
