I'm sitting at the kitchen counter looking through the countless images of jewelry and artwork, hoping for inspiration. This is supposed to be blog about art and life, I keep reminding myself. I finally settle on this image of a bracelet I made about six months ago - its a vintage escutcheon with the word "happiness" encased in resin behind the keyhole. Its suppposed to inspire me write on...Nothing yet. I think I'll change my venue.
I've moved outside into the girls' playhouse in the back yard. Clusters of cumulus clouds drift overhead, in a cerulean sky. The girls are busy climbing up and down the sliding board as they wait for me to finish writing. A copy of Junie B. Jones and some Sneaky Peeky Spying sits beside me, a guilty reminder that it's nearly time to read in the hammock, and I'm doing something else.
"Mom, do you want to be an acrobat with us? You just have to practice and practice, and then you make up your own show."
What's it like to be an acrobat, I ask?
"Well, it just feels like being myself. It feels like happiness."
Its really so simple - that deep sense of knowing, innate to small children. The great irony is that as we age and become more "knowledgeable," we become ever more dependent on the world around us to guide us, to tell us what is right and good, what has value. Rather than allowing ourselves to trust that deep sense of knowing, we're compelled to chase after it - that nebulous detatched sense of what is "good" - that we too may be valued, important, ergo happy.
I often hesitate to write, or blog, as it were, for just that very reason: So much to say, but where to begin? So many stories to tell, stories that reflect my own deep sense of knowing that our humanity is the delicate thread that connects us all, each to the other, but am I really "good enough" to do this? To call myself an artist? Is it not arrogant to do so? 
There are so many things to do and see in this crazy amazing life, and my journey thus far has been rich indeed. Now my greatest hope is is to leave the world a bit better by raising two girls who, despite the everything, continue to trust the wisdom of the inner voice. The one that has the clarity to say, "It feels like being myself. It feels like happiness."