Year in Review - 2013

Still the brain is central to all things in my life. What a surprise. While I read about the heart, the voice, the light, the tribe, the foundation, my true awareness circles around the brain. It has been nearly two years since I had surgery to remove the benign meningioma that was supposedly to blame for my ever-gray-day headaches and the partial aphasic seizures I was having. It has been two years since I began inculcating my body to accept that it would be on anti-seizure medications that leave me a bit foggy, and always in need of more sleep. It's been two years since the door was opened to painting and drawing as an alternative to writing for my vocation. It's been two years since I really began appreciating the little, independent details in a life - the ability to get around, to stay awake, to write and speak, to remember, to HEAR, to SEE, to FEEL what is real. I am ever grateful simply to be alive and to have love surrounding me so that I can make my way through the coming challenges. It feels like an opportunity to become more honest in life and true to myself that I lucked into and have to take advantage of always.

Rest Assured, by Vivi Sojorhn (c) 2013

I have learned a lot in 2013. I suppose mainly it is that I have real limits and that to respect myself, I have to accept this. The last year was a flurry of trying again to do everything I wanted to do. I even published a magazine on-line for six months. I was consumed with work, with finding my work. I didn't find it. I found instead that spreading myself over so many goals undid everything, including my feeling of well-being that was so fragile to begin with having survived brain surgery.

I leave 2013 with a list of over ten things I would love to accomplish, knowing that I have to choose JUST ONE OF THEM to work on at a time. Heavy sigh of release on my breath! I have never chosen to do just one thing in my entire life. This is completely new. I really don't know if I can be so focused. But, knowing all that I know about the state of my being, I know that if I hope to finish anything at all, it has to be a chosen, single focus - my health. It begins with my physical health and so before anything else gets started I am overhauling my schedule, our apartment, art and all, and my body with exercise and mindful things I tend to revolt against, like meditation and nutritious diet. Gasp. Once I feel I have a handle on the things within and around me, then I will look back at the list and see if there really is anything there for me.

How will I know that I am healthy? How will I be satisfied that I've done everything I can to make our space work for everyone (as that is actually not having oil pastels everywhere, and papers flying off the walls) and that it is time to move onto another thing on the list? How will I know that I'm what I am and have a foundation? Well...it starts with putting away Christmas 2013, small as it is, and it ends with having the feeling that I understand what I can really do in a day. Believe it or not, I'm still not sure. I'm not sure what is medication, and what is just not moving enough. I'm not sure what my power source is anymore. So it is time to find out.

A Little Fire, by Vivi Sojorhn (c) 2013

Meanwhile, I hope that the right next step surfaces out of the many possibilities. When I can sustain small projects to finish, when I can let go of the unnecessary, when I can walk my talk all things become possible again. I think I didn't give myself enough time to heal from surgery before diving into being productive, and my family has paid for that. So, it is time to focus just on healing with no other goal because I am blessed truly with FULL SUPPORT to do only that task, and in fact, have been implored to focus only on that. I'm dangerously gratified by the excitement around a piece of my artwork, or magazine, so that I can stop there and forget to figure out how to sell it. It isn't fair to my kids or my husband upon whom I am entirely dependent still. What I hope is that by the end of 2014, I will be independent and even supportive of the coming needs of my family --  a college student, a high school student, two dogs, a wonderful husband and aging parents. They are dependent on me being as fully here as I can be. There is no going back to being who I once was, but finding out who I can be is an oath for the year that I commit to with somber and serious will.

Somehow the flitting Monarch Butterfly, that seems to wander from flower to flower, through the shadow and sunlight aimlessly, through rebellious winds and wet storms, makes the journey to the land of its creation to begin a new cycle.  That's the kind of strength I'm looking for within, a compass that guides me to trust my first mind and to carry through to the finish.