Reflection and thanks for 2011

I've been reflecting on 2011 and thinking about all the changes I've been through during that year. Wow! There have been a lot! I moved from Nevada (having lived in the Carson City area for just shy of 10 years) to Bend, Oregon. Beautiful Bend! The trees here have healing power. Yes, that's my earth-muffin feeling. The trees have fragrances that are like aromatherapy. The air here mends the mind and heart. I'm so thankful that we made the impetuous move here.

I published two novels in 2011: THE DREAM STAR, science-fiction, and ENCHANTMENTS, a fantasy verse-novel based on Arthurian myth. I've let go of many attachments and opened my mind and heart to the unknown on so many levels. I've grown even closer to my husband of 24 years and our 23-year-old son. I'm thankful for all of it.

I recently read again my interview published in the September issue of Wildflower Magazine (http://issuu.com/wildflowermag/docs/september2011?mode=window&backgroundColor=%23222222) talking about THE DREAM STAR and ENCHANTMENTS, how I came to write both stories, what inspired them, etc., and it brought back all the challenges and joys surrounding writing both books. It takes so much love, commitment, patience, and trust to write a novel. Will they find their audience? Only time will tell...

Though the experience of self-publication brought to light certain shattering realities about who I believed my friends and supporters to be, I'm thankful for it all. I found support from lots of folks that surprised me. And there were "friends" who I had thought for sure would be supportive of my publications who never gave me even a small kind word. It helped me detach from old ties in a way that I needed to. And to appreciate the people who did support me, even though it didn't "get them anything."

I've had breakthroughs with my poetry writing - having to trust in my own sense of what works and what doesn't in a poem (after having moved away from my longtime poetry critique group in Nevada, Ash Canyon Poets - a wonderful group, btw!) and no longer having that kind of feedback before submitting poems to literary journals and poetry magazines. But I got poems published, anyway.

I feel that, altogether, 2011 was a phenomenal year. Very painful, sometimes. Very freeing and mind-expanding, too. I'm looking forward to 2012. I have a feeling life will present many more changes. It's pretty cool living in the unknown.