Living with Out Fear, Eyes Open

"I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom
goes on as fruit."
-Dawna Markova

It has been a crazy couple of weeks, and my blog posts have become woefully at the bottom of the priority list. I've finally had a chance to catch up on life's to do list, and this past weekend actually had time to sit down and do something I hadn't had time for in quite a while: design.

I'm working on final pieces for my Spring/Summer collection for next year, and then it's on to designing the body of work that I'll be selling out next fall. When you work so far in advance, and then come back to the pieces you created for that particular season, you also remember what the world was delivering at your doorstep at the time--what was influencing your creative processes.

I was reminded of this over the weekend, as I came back to finish some pieces that I had started during a very tumultuous time in my life. I remember being inundated with thoughts of anxiety and fear; fear of what was coming, who I would be, and what impact it would all have on my life and my son's life.

In the past, fear was the rudder on my ship: fear of failing; fear of uncertainty; fear of losing; fear of abandonment. I made decisions (or didn't make them) based on fear. A girlfriend of mine recently said, "Well, all of these things have happened to you even though you feared them--so I guess you don't have to fear them anymore." It was like a lightbulb had gone off and it changed my entire way of thinking.

I am trying to live each day now with no fear. Living this way has brought me opportunities that I can't even have imagined. It has brought me a life that is truly mine, a life in which I try to see each day as it comes and look it straight in the eye and say, "I am not afraid."

Stay tuned for fall/holiday work, updates about Sundance (it's all good!) and just on life. In the meantime, live without fear. Do not live in fear of falling or catching fire. Savor each moment, each second of this wonderful gift we call life.