Yes, it’s almost spring! It already feels like spring here on the coast of North Carolina. It gets cold still, but most days are sunny and much warmer by the day and flowers are coming up in the garden. This week I picked a little bouquet, an anemone, a tiny grape hyacinth, 2 beautiful gerbera daisies, and 2 petunias, one of the sweetest flowers, that self-sowed a couple of years ago from a hanging basket and just keeps coming back…

And now tiny narcissus are blooming along the pathway and the daffodils are about to open, it gets more exciting by the day to go out into the garden and see what is coming up. Before long I will be out there every day planting and weeding and glorying in it all. But it has been a dark winter for most of us, a year into the Covid pandemic, too many have been lost, so much has been lost, not only beloved people but a whole way of life. We have, a great many of us, suffered terrible depression, anxiety, and more. Many people who never experienced depression in their lives are now on anti-depressants. Having suffered a lifetime of mental health challenges from bipolar disorder, serious depression and anxiety, and PTSD, depression has been no stranger to me but my medication has been raised 4 times since October when I was changed to a different drug. I am only just getting intimations that this dose may finally be working. It takes time.

Last September I started a Patreon community which has been a real blessing in my life. I am deeply grateful to my Patrons who are supporting me as I write my Maisie’s World book. And the book itself is such an exciting journey. I started drawing and painting Maisie and her delightful, whimsical, soulful world a little over 2 years ago and now the book, thanks to my Patrons whose support helps me buy art supplies, office and studio needs, are making it possible for me to do my work. But, living on social security only, I have realized that I have got to do something else to create much needed income. It came to me that I could do little Maisie paintings, one of a kind originals, signed, with a personal note. The “Bloom” image at the top is the first one I have done. They will not be available for awhile but they will be coming later this spring.

The thing is that while I do need the income, and I love doing the little paintings, I was afraid. First of all it would require me getting a P.O. Box because I cannot put my personal address on packages and that sent me into a bit of a tailspin. I am agoraphobic. I rarely ever left the house before Covid and when I went last Saturday to get my first Covid vaccine I had literally not left the house where I had to get out of the car and go in some place for a year! March 1, 2020 was the last time I went anywhere. Over the summer I did start to get out to get groceries but I didn’t go in. I ordered and paid online and drove over and they put them in my car. I was there and back in less than 15 minutes and even that made me very nervous. A P.O. Box? Having to regularly go to the post office? Oh dear God, no. But…

Well you see the thing is once I do start going out, after I’ve had both vaccines, and of course wearing a mask, and I would still be going out rarely, but my therapist, whom I have seen online weekly for the last year, is only 10 minutes from my house and the post office is practically next door to her. Maybe, just maybe, once a week, when I’m able to get out to go to therapy, I could check the P.O. Box? And then I realized that I might not have to go very often at all. I mean the point of me having a P.O. box is mainly so I have a return address for the little packages that is not my home address. I won’t be using it for other things, so it may be a rare thing that I even get mail there. I could call once a week when I’m able to go out to therapy and just see if there was anything there I needed to pick up. That might work, I thought. Maybe. But then I looked at the little Maisie painting I had just done. I had painted the word “Bloom” at the bottom of the painting, and it suddenly struck me, it was as if I (yes, a bit nervously) had had an awakening. I will be 67 next month. If I don’t start to have even just a wee bit more of a life now, when in the world will I? Yes, I am agoraphobic, and even past Covid I will still rarely be going out, but surely, to get Maisie’s art out and make a little extra much needed income I could do it. Couldn’t I?

And then I looked at my little Maisie painting again, meditating on the word Bloom. And that old phrase “Bloom where you’re planted,” came to mind. Isn’t it time not just for me but for all of us to begin to bloom? Yes, Covid is still with us, no it is not a perfect world but it never was and it’s never going to be. Can we just, just a tiny little bit, begin to bloom, right where we are, in our own time and way? I believe for me it’s time, and the first step for me will be doing these little paintings and getting a P.O. Box and taking ever so small steps, now and again, out into the world. Not many mind, but we needn’t make huge, life-changing changes now, in fact we really can’t with the restrictions Covid has placed on our lives, but still, we can do something, right? What one little thing might you do? Mother Teresa said, “Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” And if we ever needed to do small things with great love it is now.

So this is my small thing, and it will be offered with great love. The actual size of the little painting at the top is 4×6″. I will also be doing 5×7″ paintings. I will be doing these as I work on Maisie’s book, and it will be perfect because as I work on an illustrated page I can get just so far and then I have to allow time for it to dry, and I am sitting here with my art supplies all around me, so that is the time I will use to do the small paintings. It is not a big step beyond what I am already doing, but it is a step, and it is what I can do. I thought, yesterday, of the Eleanor Roosevelt quote, “We must do the thing we think we cannot do.” I didn’t think I could do this, but I think I have to, in fact, I’m going to. I’d love to hear from all of you how you might begin to bloom again in your own life. It’s almost Spring. It’s time.