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my very FIRST 11×17 poster and very FIRST project collaborating with Sam Davidson, author of New Day Revolution and co-founder of coolpeoplecare.org

1. Get amazing phone call from Sam with a brilliant idea.
2. Make yourself delirious with all the possibilities.
3. Talk about the project for ten hours on the phone with various people you know.
4. Obsess over the text. Ask Sam to send you new text. Change text again. Again.
5. Thank your lucky stars Sam still wants to work with you even though you have unchecked OCD tendencies.
6. Lock yourself in tower. Emerge with perfectly inked poster and destroyed shoulder.
7. Beg your massage therapist neighbor to put you back together again. Promise to pay her in posters, candles and love.
8. Go home. Totally screw up colors on original poster. Go back to the drawing board.
9. Pull an all-nighter. Work the next day. And the next. Live on pots of Stove Top stuffing.
10. Finish the poster.

I left out all the cursing, the unshowering, the marital discord, the abuse of designer neighbors/friends and the euphoria. But let’s not talk about that.

It’s up, it’s here and in my store for pre-order one week before it goes to its brand new home on coolpeoplecare.org..

new (and some new-ish) additions to the SoulSister Designs Etsy Store. i’m especially proud of the hopefulness kit idea. all proceeds from the sale of that kit will help fund kindness work in our neighborhoods and around the world.

While you were eating all that turkey and wishing someone would turn down that football, my sisters Kris and Pache and I were working like a hive of busy bees stocking and re-stocking our virtual stores. Over the last few weeks, my sister Patience has been acting as our able manager, taking over fulfillment of orders for me, conspiring on new tee-shirt projects with Kris and taking our things to various craft shows around Richmond, her hometown. This feels like the equivalent of finding out you have a fairy godmother. And I’m not kidding. I have stacks of art waiting for organization and a home. And HUGE issues with getting orders out on time. Not to mention technical difficulties getting certain pieces up and live over here. Pache is pulling the whole thing together and we are alive with productive activity because of it.

I have two goals with my art. One, to let my art be a source of passive income for my family–mostly my husband, who has been very patient with his creative bohemian wife who locks herself up in the Tower with a box of paints while entertaining a host of immigrants and other displaced peoples. And two, to have an outlet for inspiring people to heal, to grow, to hope and to give more freely to others they meet in their everyday world. My sister is playing an integral part in this dream for me, and for this I am incredibly thankful.

What are you thankful for this Monday? With deadlines and other responsibilities looming this Monday, I would LOVE to know.

It’s almost a year ago that I was doing my Thanksgiving Day shopping and had this incredible conversation with two strangers in front of Trader Joe’s. Over the course of this year, I have received random emails from more strangers saying they found this post at just the right time by putting search terms like “no love left” into google or following links from far and near. Those stories are truly my treasures. I’m reposting this today, just in case you’re out and about and see someone you’ve never met in desperate need of encouragement. I hope you’ll be brave and do something crazy like hug someone for no reason or tell someone you think everything will work out after all.

So, I’m walking out of Trader Joe’s with my cart and my turkeys and a grocery cart full of snacks and whatnot, and I’m just about to pass two men walking in. The one guy looks Iranian, like my friend Farah’s husband Mahmoud, with closely cut salt and pepper hair and perfectly tailored clothes, about 50ish. He’s talking to his friend, who’s younger–more my age maybe. Just when our paths are about to cross, the older man turns to me and say in all seriousness, “I’m telling you–there is no love left in this world.”

“No, no, no!” I said. “That can’t be true. Please don’t say that.”

“Do you know that moment,” the younger guy says, explaining, “when you are at the bottom of everything and you have a little hope left, but you’re not sure if it’s going to last? You’re not sure if there’s really anything there at all?” I nod.

“That–” he says, pointing to the man’s heart “is exactly where my friend’s at right now.”

The older man shrugs in agreement, laughs it off and turns to go to the store.

“Wait, wait a minute.” I call back. “Come back. Come here. My whole day is going to be wrecked if we leave it like that.”

The man turns and walks back to me, until we are standing toe to toe, eye to eye.

“Give me your hand,” I order him, turning on my mother “you-must-do-as-I-say” voice. “I’m going to give you a blessing.” And like a child knowing it would be too much trouble to refuse, he puts his hand in mine.

I don’t know what to say really. But I do know that there is no such thing as no Love left in this world. I know that Love is always waiting, whether or not we have the courage to see it or to receive it.

I stumble through a few sentences and he takes it, at least a little bit. I figure if all else fails he can always say–There was that girl in the Trader Joe’s. At least that’s something.

Now it’s my turn to leave, but this time the other guy stops me. And he is insistent.

“I need that so much more than he does! You have to say a prayer for me, too. I have to have it right now.”

I laugh–since it’s probably more like wishing than praying really–but he gives me his hand and waits–the way you wait when you’re desperate for good news after the worst disaster. The way you wait when you’re hoping for a break.

I feel so helpless and silly, trying to find words that will ease one man’s pain. I don’t know what to say, I don’t even know if what I’m saying is true for him or not, but I am trying. I want something to make a difference, something that will stay with him long after this day.

“Your path is unfolding before you,” I tell him. “You cannot see it now, but it’s true. All you have to do is take the next step, one step at a time. Open your eyes and receive everything you need. Something so much greater is holding you, I’m sure of it.”

At this, his eyes fill up a little bit and he nods, taking it straight to his heart. They ask my name, and I answer. I tell them I’m going home right now to light candles for both of them, that I will be thinking about them both all day. It’s the only thing I know how to do, to try to hold that tiny piece of suffering as long as I can, to remember them, to care.

On the way home, I call my sister and tell her the whole story.

“It’s just horrible,” I tell her, “to think that right now people are wandering around the grocery story feeling like there’s no love left in the world.” I sigh. “How many people do you think are feeling like that?”

“Um, almost all of them?” She laughs, but then she sighs, too.

I hope it’s not true.

I’m the kind of person who has total amnesia about every hard time I’ve ever had exactly five minutes after it’s over. I can be ready to blow my brains out one second and then have a change of heart and feel like everything makes perfect sense the next. I wish I could say I walk around blessing people even when I feel crummy. That I don’t lose sight of hope when things are falling apart. But the truth is I’m entirely capable of telling strangers that there is no love left in this world. At the grocery store. In the parking lot. On the week of Thanksgiving.

Can you see now why instantly I loved them?

I came home to Moirita singing a little song to herself while her mother, my friend, Lourdes performed miracles on the mess upstairs. I tell Lourdes what happened. “Aye, pobrecitos,” she says. I tell her how lucky I feel that someone would tell me such things, but she thinks I mean just lucky in general about my life.

“Si.” she says, answering me in Spanish, sober. “You are one lucky woman.”

That brings me down to earth, to every kindness, to every privilege I have ever known my whole life long. I light the candles, first one, than the other, hoping that the man will find the love he needs. That his friend will see his path unfolding before him, and that I will have the eyes to see it for myself, the next time sadness finds me, the next time I fear all hope is lost.

This summer before I left for Blogher, I had this little visitation from the Muse that left me with this dear girl jumping off the page. I loved everything about her–her hair, her curvy lines, her chunky necklace, that sweet heart. I wasn’t sure exactly where she would want to live–on a card? in a zine? on a candle? I decided to let her hang out in the studio for awhile until the time seemed right for Big Decisions like that.

Then at Blogher, I met and fell in love with Myriam, one of Tracey Clark’s nearest and dearest friends. Myriam had been commenting on this blog every now and then. She’d say the kinds of things that went right to my heart, rearrange the soul furniture a little bit and leave me feeling more capable and inspired. We immediately took advantage of every chance moment to be together, to tell each other our stories and share our deepest, darkest sticking points. Myriam told me some major things about my marriage and about the silliness of some stories I’d been telling myself. I took those words to heart and am living in a much altered (and happier!) state today in part because of her insight.

One afternoon during a session, I dared to pull Joy-full Girl up on the screen and introduce her to Myriam. It was hard not to gasp seeing Myriam and Joy-full Girl in the same room together. “Who do you think she is???” Myriam asked, looking at the cartoon version of her own sweet self. “I don’t know,” I told her. “You tell me.”

“Look,” she pointed out. “She’s even wearing the JOY necklace.” Myriam is such a lover of JOY, she started an earth-friendly children’s clothing company by the same name. All her kid tees are made of a bamboo fiber which makes every piece extra soft and strong. The spreading of JOY is one of her specialties. We both were thrilled with the magic of that girl coming to life before we ever met.

I decided to let the JOY-full girl hold the space for worry in the form of a candle, since worry and doubt need to be put in their proper place in order to make room for JOY. Sometimes it’s as simple as acknowledging the worries that are weighing me down. By speaking them out loud or writing them down in a little book, I give them the credence they crave before I let them go. I light the candle to remind me JOY is here, too, in the middle of darkness. I light the candle as a way of shifting my focus, of saying I will choose kindness and courage for my path instead of fear or hesitation. I light the candle to say JOY is a path I can choose, anytime I want.

Are you a joy-full girl? It’s Thanksgiving week, so go ahead and let your worries go in the comments below. That way we’ll make way for joy together for the week to come.

you can see this girl up close and personal at the Soulsister Design Gallery here.

Friday night, Dave, Nick, Jess and I drove up to NYC to see Jonatha Brooke play live at the Rubin Museum. It was an acoustic concert–no amplification of any kind, just Jonatha on guitar and piano. I’ve followed JB’s music for a long time, and I adore her, but halfway through I really wished for a seedy, dive with poor lighting and a scratchy mike instead the staid, grownup observatory of the Rubin–as exquisite a space as that is. (We made up for that later! :))

Here’s one of my favorite songs that she *didn’t* play the other night to explain why I love her so. (On a sidenote: I’m wondering how many of you can’t play these kinds of videos when I post them. Feel free to let me know in the comments!)

Thank you so much for your kindness and good encouragement on my last post. I needed every word!

My sister Patience reminded me of this tiny piece of art I made so long ago. Oh, so fitting, one short year later. Any miracles you’re making your heart ready for?

I’m lighting a candle for mine, and yours, too, this rainy night.

I don’t like it when lines are drawn in the sand.

I’m not a huge fan when someone gets what they deserve.

All the terms feel foreign to me. I want reconciliation, restitution, peace whenever possible. It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around the idea that people are intentionally unkind, unjust, unfair. This might be a virtue if the world was not such a messy place, where sometimes your choices mean a world of suffering for someone else. I don’t want that to be true, but it is.

It’s what it means to live in an interconnected world.

“Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle,” said Philo of Alexandria. I’m holding on to this today, as I wander through my day, standing in the dark with dear ones, overlooking a canyon of hallows. Justice is flowing like a river, and my heart is heavy with the weight of it all.

In the middle of writing my last post, I found this video which made me feel so happy and brave. I hope it makes you feel the same way, no matter the dream–tiny or grand–weaving its way into your wide open loving heart.

this is Caroline’s cover of Songs You Already Know: Scared by Ze Frank

songs you already know: scared from Posalootly on Vimeo.

So many magical things happening here for which I am immensely grateful, and still I feel this tiny pang whenever I hear stories of travelers from faraway lands. There’s a big part of my heart that wants to go home with my friend to the village and sing songs while we figure out how to build a stronger house–the kind that lasts longer than the one she owns now made of sticks and mud.

And reading about Frida in Afghanistan makes me wander around the house with my passport in my pocket, wondering what it would take to see her there, wondering what random act of kindness would bring a tiny flame of hope that can catch fire and become an unstoppable blaze.

One glance at the trailer for Persepolis, and then I’m missing Tehran, wondering if there’s any chance in hell I will see that city in my lifetime with Mahasti and Nazanin as my sage guides.

These are ludicrous dreams, I know, but still I can’t shake them. I want to take pictures in India, make movies in Africa, wander the Middle East drinking tea and listening to stories that change everything forever. Every time I meet a wandering soul from some place faraway, it’s my first instinct to say, please, please come here. Sit down right here and tell me everything about your dreams and that place that your heart calls home.

Last night I had a dream where I was floating in a boat at night on a shimmering sea with a friend and Madeleine. My friend, who I didn’t know and couldn’t see, wanted to set off fireworks for Madeleine which made me nervous, but I gave my permission just the same. The fireworks went off without sound, and I remember being thrilled with how bright, how silently they filled the sky. But as they started to fade and fall, I realized they might fall to a place beyond the sea very dear to me–Mark and Meryl’s backyard–and I worried the smoldering pieces would light an unquenchable, dangerous fire. Instead, as each fiery piece touched the earth, the most incredible village sprung up all around us–creating a place so magical, so amazing, that all we could do was look on with unspeakable wonder.

I have no idea what my dreams mean–the ones when I’m asleep or when I’m awake. But I like that I feel most alive when outrageous ideas like this take hold of me and insist I take them seriously, like old friends begging to show me the way.

Oh, a serious thank you to Marilyn for this via Twitter this morning.

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