Begin Again

Earlier in my career, I had a business called I Am Story. Combining my experience as a counselor and a writer, I helped people find and capture their personal histories. It was fascinating work, and I uncovered remarkable stories.

But that wasn’t all I did. I kept a blog on my website and posted every Friday without fail—for four years. The routine strengthened my writing, but more than that, it required me to pay attention: to what was happening around me and to what was stirring beneath the surface within me. I wrote about writing and art and psychology and parenting and friendships and work and death and creativity. It remains some of the best work I’ve ever done.

Every so often, I would reread something I had written and wonder how it had come from me. It felt as though the words had flowed through me rather than from me. In those moments, I sensed I had tapped into an astonishing creative well. It didn’t happen every time—but often enough that it became the experience I still chase, whether I’m writing or painting or stitching or teaching.

Then, around 2013, life shifted. Several people I knew and loved died. The losses didn’t just affect me—they rippled through the lives of those closest to me. The weekly writing rhythm became something I could no longer sustain. There was too much other emotional work requiring my attention. Eventually, I gave myself permission to let it go.

Soon after came another major transition. After 35 years of living in Oregon—my entire adult life up to that point—my husband and I moved to California. As a kind of quiet rite of passage, I canceled our Comcast account, along with the email address I had used for years. I set up a new Gmail account and began building a new life.

What I didn’t realize was that my website host was tied to that old email address. Or that the credit card on file had expired. They tried to reach me for months, but had no way to do so.

About a year after the move, I felt the familiar pull to return—to writing, to recording what I was noticing, especially as my focus had shifted more toward painting and art. I typed in my website name, ready to begin again.

It was gone.

Not just offline. The files had been deleted from the servers only weeks before.

Gone. All those weeks. All those words. All those thoughts and ideas.

I was deeply sad for a time. But not as long as I might have expected. Because I realized that what I was really after had never been the archive itself. It was the experience, the act of reaching for and touching that creative current. If I found it before, I believe I can find it again.

More than anything, I believe it came from the habit of showing up—not from talent alone, but from attention, consistency, and a willingness to begin again.

So I’m showing up again.

In my studio. In my sketchbook. And now, in this blog I’m calling Studio Notes.

It would be lovely if these words connect with someone. But even if they don’t—even if no one ever reads a single word—it will still be worth it, simply to touch that well of creativity once more.