My wall of girls for my upcoming show.

A few years ago when I was going through my divorce and all other kinds of dramas, I felt like it was just one thing after another, as if each week were an exercise in trying to juggle as many catastrophes as possible without ending up either addicted to drugs or incoherently babbling in a corner, switching a light on and off like Glenn Close’s character in "Fatal Attraction".  It actually became laughable at one point to think of all the things that were going wrong.

These days I am feeling the opposite kind of downpour, for I am now riding a wave that is bursting with excitement and good fortune, despite the difficulties I have alluded to in recent posts.  With all of these expected and unexpected developments, life is about to go from very busy to extremely busy, and I am spending part of this evening mapping out the next 4-6 weeks of my life in order to manage and plan ahead for all that will need to be taken care of.

First, my show, which opens this weekend.  Thirty-one pieces were hung yesterday, and number thirty-two is going up Friday.  As I have worked on everything that needs to be done for the opening, I have, for the first time, began to see myself really making a go of this whole gallery thing.  That may sound strange after all of the work I’ve done since last August, but for a long time now my main objective has simply been to build a body of work, for without that I can’t even think about having shows.  Now that I’m headed into my second show – which is really my first "official" show since it is at a studio – I am beginning to get the hang of the process.  I know I still have much to learn and don’t even have any leads on where my next show might be, but I still feel confident that this is the beginning of a promising direction.  I am feeling nervous about this weekend (What if no one shows up?  What if nothing sells?), but I am happy to feel those jitters.  It means I’m not playing it safe, and this is a good thing.

Second, two weeks from tomorrow (yikes!) I am leaving to go to this.  It is one of my wildest dreams come true, and when I least expected it – for I never expected it to happen – the stars aligned in the best way possible.  I will write much, much more about this after I return, but I cannot stress this enough:  when you have a dream, dare to talk about it, even with total strangers, because you never know what will come of these serendipitous conversations.

Third, and another one of these "Surprise!" moments this week, we’re in escrow on a house in LA.  It is not unusual for my fiancee and I to decide what we want and make our move immediately, so in a way this does not surprise me.  It is unexpected in the sense that in all of the months we have been researching the real estate market in LA, we have never found anything at the lowest end of our price range that looked at all worth the money.  When we found this and then went to see it Monday, we did not waste any time getting our offer and paperwork together, and now here we are – in escrow!

I have written quite a bit of my uneasiness with selling our Solvang house and trying to get settled in LA, but I have turned a corner and am feeling very excited about this new development.  Of course the deal isn’t done – all kinds of things could still go wrong and we could fall out of escrow – but for now I am enjoying the feeling of having made a decision that feels terribly smart all the way around.  This will make our lives much saner financially, emotionally, and mentally.  For the first time in our 19 months in LA, we will be in our own home, a home that we love and that meets all of our needs.  A home that we can afford and that needs not one bit of work since it was just renovated completely top to bottom.  A home with a beautiful outdoor deck that overlooks a lush, green backyard with a giant palm tree.  A home with a bedroom that is going to make an absolutely fabulous studio space.  Quite simply, a home, in every sense of the word.

So life is going to get busy.  Very busy.  Maybe even overwhelming at times.  But this onslaught of THINGS TO DO is all about creativity, hope, the future, fun, positive energy and dreams come true.  This is a wave I get to ride that feels like a perfect counter-balance to everything that was falling apart not so long ago.  I want to savor that, and appreciate the goodness in all of the lists, errands, papers to sign, documents to prepare, boxes to pack, pictures to take and things to organize.  Had I not gone through what I’ve been through, I might be looking ahead at the next couple of months thinking, "CRAP!  So much to do!!!", but instead I have a hard-earned appreciation for the fact that all of this craziness is actually blessing after blessing after blessing.  Every single moment is going to be precious.  The journey is the gift, not just the destination.