On a boat ride in South America – on the left was Paraguay, on the right was Argentina, and straight ahead was Brazil, where this river met another one.

Last week I went on my deck to read the paper at about 8:00am and it was too hot.  I ended up taking a walk on the beach soon after in my tank top and bare feet.

Less than 48 hours later I was bundled up in a sweater and jacket when I went outside.

Today driving home from the grocery store rain – with small pieces of hail – was falling on my car.

Last night the power went out for no apparent reason for almost two hours, and as I was writing in my journal by candlelight I turned around in my chair, knocked the candle over and spilled wax all over our couch and brand new rug.

This past weekend I got to spend time with a girlfriend I’ve known since I was 12 who was visiting from the east coast as well as an old friend from Santa Barbara who now lives in Edinburgh.  I hadn’t seen him in about eight years, and we got to have lunch during his layover in LA between New Zealand and the UK.

In between all of these peculiar and unusual occurrences, I have been working furiously on my book proposal so I can mail it next week and then work furiously again for my next show.  Considering how easily this proposal has felt – how beautifully it is all coming together – I have been pondering the question of whether or not the best or most meaningful creative work must come out of angst and difficulty.  I have found myself questioning whether or not I was doing my best work – could it be my best work and be this easy?  Am I not pushing myself enough?  Trying hard enough?  Do I need to try to push myself into some kind of uncomfortable place in order to pull out my very "best" work?

There are definitely those who believe the best work comes from darker places, and I will say that in my overall journey the work I am doing now – which I consider to be some of my best – has absolutely emerged out of puddles of muck and eerie forests.  At this exact moment everything feels very light and in some ways effortless, but when I look back at where I’ve been up until this moment, I see that the difficult part of this chapter in my life already made its impact…I went into the dark spaces and did the work I needed to do, and now the lessons I learned are with me as I do this new creative work.  I have already pulled the jewels out of the rocks, so now it is simply a matter of arranging them in a new way, a beautiful way, in a way they can be shared and appreciated, perhaps by someone else in the midst of their own tangled path.