Face to Face With the Next Step

Before my friend Marcia was "my friend Marcia", she was the instructor/facilitator in a workshop I took. One night, she gave us all a photocopied cartoon of a dog on a staircase, his forehead butted against the oncoming stair. It's titled, "Face to face with the next step". I kept it and put it on the side of my refrigerator. While I was doing my morning pages today, it caught my eye, and I smiled.

On Sunday, for the first time, I will be selling my own stuff at a craft fair. Decoupaged switchplate covers, to be exact. I am terrified (what if no one buys anything? what if someone tells me my stuff is ugly, imperfect?), overwhelmed and excited. I am face to face with the next step.

I know, it's not rocket science...it's paper glued onto a light switch cover. But it's MY work. It took over two years just to get this far, to find something I thought I could do, to shut down the nasty little inner censor that tells me I'm foolish, untalented and just plain stupid for even thinking I could be an artist. My head was butted up against that step for so long, it hurt to think. And I know it's not finished. I know I'll wrestle with it every day that I choose to make creativity my life.

My goal for the future is to create shrines and altars and combine it with my Celebrancy practice, focusing particularly on individuals who have been seriously ill and are making a transition back to "normalcy". I would also like to work with those men and women who know they are facing the last journey of this life, and would like to do it in a way that makes them happy. Everyone deserves that much.
For the nonce, however, I'm face to face with the next step, and ready to climb. Keep your fingers crossed!