I took this photo several years ago and it has always been a favorite. I didn’t make the soap, but I love how I shared it with myself. The dish is family china and very old. Hand painted in Austria.

It’s four in the morning and I am up. Not unusual these days. I have recently become aware of a few things. Sometimes the negative of my world seems to overshadow the many aspects which are beautiful beyond words. I carry some guilt about this.  I’m working on it. Not ignoring the ugly, but seeing the beauty.

I recently realized that like my father, I am a romantic.  I mean romantic in the old-fashioned way:

a person whose creative work shows sensitivity and imagination

My father was a bitter cynic in many ways, yet the older I grow, the more I understand how sensitive he was.  His capacity to love despite the very difficult circumstances of his upbringing is probably one of the biggest triumphs of spirit I have ever personally witnessed. He was literally an abandoned child.  Left at an orphanage for several years and forgotten about—hint….he wasn’t an orphan which made it worse.

I was looking over my writing a few days ago…years of poems, my journals, plays, my novel etc… and I realized that there is a theme to my work. All the characters grow in some way and they all are assisted by spirit be it obvious (guides, ghosts and angels) or more subtle….intuitions. I am so happy to have realized this. It seems like a piece of my creative puzzle has been laid down and I understand my work a bit more than I did before. It feels as though a personal evolution is taking place and no matter how I look at it or want to not look at it, it is happening. I recently joked with a friend that, “I’m growing up right before your very eyes!“  We laughed because it is so true and it scares the crap out of me, but I know this is a good thing. No matter how strong the growing pains can be, I want the growth and I love that in this way, my life and art are intertwined.

Most people can look back over the years and identify a time and place at which their lives changed significantly. Whether by accident or design, these are the moments when, because of a readiness within us and a collaboration with events occurring around us, we are forced to seriously reappraise ourselves and the conditions under which we live and to make certain choices that will affect the rest of our lives.

- Frederick F. Flack