missing you

Greetings from Snowy Michigan!
The first thing on my mind is to let you know that I’m missing you. I have been in Ann Arbor Michigan, with a pit stop in Ypsilanti, and increasing forays into Detroit, for just over six months. I notice that the drivers are friendlier here, but the highway trucks and majority rust belters drive much more aggressively on the highways. Ann Arbor is a friendly place, welcoming and approachable. You can’t swing a cat without hitting some kind of festival or community event here. My favorites so far have been weekly motorcycle and car enthusiast meet ups in Ypsilanti, and families camping on the green of the local nature center for a night in August. The all-Tuba Christmas concert was also great.
But what isn’t here, is the easy opportunity to see you, at my studio, a Farmer’s Market, my sister’s house, for a cup of tea or a purposeful gathering. I loved those gatherings and chance encounters, part of my weekly, monthly or daily routines. Suddenly, without meaning to, you are just not there! not OK! So now that I’ve got my sea legs under me in a new marriage, a new town, new home, new studio, and fledgling communities, I bid you Happy Chinese New Year and invite myself back into your life.
It’s been very important for me to shake loose of Boston-brain, having been there my whole life, to experience easier race-relations, a DIY culture that involves reupholstering your vintage BMW or welding the best part of two cars into one super unique one.

I also find a familiar university culture with academic neurosis floating about here in Ann Arbor, similar to Cambridge.
I have been a little flummoxed about my blog. While this has always been true, it’s even more so now. Who reads it? Who am I writing for? Who cares? What am I writing about? Well, I still have no idea. However, I know more than ever that being in your life and you being in mine in whatever way is possible and sustainable is important.
One way I’ve kept in touch is through Instagram. It’s easier to post a picture than words. I follow artists and art institutions mostly, because it allows me to feel connected to everyone’s studio process and successes, and to feel like I’m at that opening or stopping in to ask a weird technical question to my studio neighbors. I also love sharing artist’s work and venues and studios here, pictures of my studio being built and small moments as this expanding neural/geographic orientation establishes itself.

It’s very cool that from here I can be in Canada in an hour, Ohio in an hour, Indiana in a few more, Illinois in about 3. Did you know that if you drive West on i90, you’ll reach me in just about 12 hours? It’s basically a straight shot.
When I do talk with people in Boston, I love to play the weather game. It’s often the same weather/temp in Ann Arbor two or so days prior to whatever’s happens in Boston. The only difference I’ve found is the snow in Boston seems heavier and slushier, and the weather altogether more dramatic: windy and petulant.
So, how can we stay in better touch? Here are some ideas: 
1. I’ll keep you posted through this newsletter/blog situation.
2. I love the technology Zoom, much like skype or google hangout, but it makes it easier to share screens and to have as many people as you want in one place. I used to have focus group type gatherings in person…perhaps we can do it online? 
[update: Note that this is a pre-pandemic post!!I am surely ahead of my time...]

3. Many of you I met through coaching. I’m still coaching!  I work on the phone, so the experience is the same as it’s ever been. It’s an exceptional kind of sacred creative space for stepping into the unknown with intention, clarity, support and confidence. To see what it’s like, I offer a 30 minute session so you can try before you buy. Just lemme know.
4. Artists! I am excited for more and more kinds of cross cultural exchange. Come explore the amazing and otherworldly Detroit art scene! It only costs about $140 for a roundtrip airfare y’know…It’s a whole new world out here.
4. My favorite way of connecting is not through technology, but through that airwavy, no-separation space of bringing you to mind and sending you love (new post on this!). I’m doing so right now. If you think of me, that’s what I’m doing, one way or another.
Also check out the rest of the Goodbonfire blog. I’ve got a recent What’s Cookin’ newflash section for art stuff, and a few other posts you might enjoy.