breathe. open.

i am learning how to breathe. how to be.

how to actually open into experience rather than fall into it and look back as i stand, telling myself, "yeah. i meant to do that."

my "plan" had been to stock my etsy cart in march. i had been working on SO much stuff. like. i'm hoarding my paintings, y'all. i don't want to do this but sometimes i do.

a few weeks ago i sold a painting that pulled on me until i pulled it off of etsy and replaced its listing with a print. a facebook friend asked me about it, it had been months and months since i decided to keep it. when she asked, though, i realized it had lived with me long enough and "what did you see, my darling young one?" found it's home.

i let go and yet i look at these paintings and i know i have to open even more.

i didn't list anything on etsy in march. i updated a few things on society6 but really my focus wasn't on online sales, at all. i had this idea that sometime this year i'd like to approach galleries or submit for my first show. within days i saw that metallo gallery was accepting submissions for their third annual microscale show. and just like that i did something that seems so easy for some people and like such an unnecessarily big deal to me - i don't even know why i quantify it like that but i am always acutely aware that i sort of make a big deal out of everything. point is, i started working towards submitting. including some older pieces and some that i didn't even start until mid-march, i did it. i got in - i showed the owner ten pieces and he said he loved them. he said i could bring anything else that i finished between now and then. it took a lot for me to tell myself that it wasn't really some joke where everyone was going to laugh when i showed up.

i pushed through. i went to tucson. i came home and painted and this week i'm delivering the paintings. in my head, i'm jumping up down, squealing like joy has never been sucked out of my experience before.

it is at once familiar and new and i know it is never easy to take those first steps. it is a feeling much like hope when there seems to be none, until, in the quiet, we can exhale. we can trust.

in learning to be open, i am learning how to inhale. to breathe. to be.