Dove nesting in our windowsill. We are close to the ocean and our home is like the corner bar for birds – lots of chirping and squawking and nesting. Taken in Venice, CA April 8, 2005.

I finally sat down to do my taxes today, but not without doing all I could to put it off most of the morning. If someone had knocked on my door and asked me to join them in giving their pet llama a bath, I would have jumped at the opportunity.

This past week has been pretty schizophrenic – some very, very wonderful news, some bad news, a difficult decision, a painful conversation, a fun afternoon riding along the beach on bicycles with my friend Bill and a phone call from a long-lost friend whom I had not spoken to in almost 20 years. Beautiful highs and frustrating lows, but – as I’ve learned over and over again – THIS IS SIMPLY LIFE and it is all part of the journey. No matter what might seem to be crumbling around me, I continue to feel extraordinarily blessed and fortunate.

I was flipping through an old magazine this morning and came across a great quote from David Bowie:

"If I’m going to do something that could be provocative or artistically relevant, I have to be prepared to put myself in a place where I feel unsafe, not completely in control. I have no fear of failure whatsoever, because often out of that uncertainty something is salvaged, something that is worthwhile comes about. There is no progress without failure. And each failure is a lesson learned. Unnecessary failures are the ones where an artist tries to second guess an audience’s taste, and little comes out of that situation except a kind of inward humiliation."

I think he nails something very important right on the head when it comes to art and creativity, which is the importance of creating from your own heart and soul rather out of a desire to try to please others. For a while I felt like I had to do whatever I could do to stay in the colorful Swirly world I had created, and that anything not "happy", "positive" or SWIRLY had to be done on the sidelines and in private. I still exist in that Swirly world and believe in following our dreams, but I have opened that world up and it encompasses so much more. Light and dark. Laughter and tears. Joy and sorrow. I started tearing down walls and building new rooms and sharing that with the world, and I have found new connections to some very inspiring souls. For a long time I thought I had to stay in that same purply-sparkly-Swirly world to be connected to people, but I realize now that I can also throw in some mud, some charcoal and broken eggshells and I will continue to inspire people with my honesty. For I have learned not to let the darkness overwhelm me, but instead to accept it without judgement and channel its energy creatively. Unless I’m really cranky, and then all I want to do is mope around and eat cereal. But that’s OK too – sometimes we need to just sit still with our sadness. And then release it lightly, like a balloon in a cloudless blue sky.