May 4, 2025

On a bulletin board in my tiny studio is a tacked up phrase:

I Think I Can.

Every so often, I look over at that phrase and remember all the

times in my life when I didn’t know if I could….

As I write I listen to soft instrumental music, similar to what I play for yoga classes.

I sink into the soft rhythmic flow and let my fingers move on the keyboard.

In Taos, I have found my muse. I sit at a small desk beneath a double window

that looks out onto the sprawling desert landscape with rolling mountains beyond.

I looked back over my first emails in 2020 that I sent following the onset

Covid and quarantining, just two years after the loss of my oldest son.
I felt the sudden shift in routine like everyone else, with the same

sense of loneliness and upheaval.

I discovered an online writing and art community that began to fill in some spaces.

I looked for little moments of joy. I needed little moments of joy.

And I wanted to share that optimism, that admittedly was sometimes more elusive.

It was then I started my virtual yoga classes and Weekly Email.

Throughout our lives loss is like a current that ripples through our present.

It stays for a while then moves on, sometimes lingering longer.

Fortunately, the counter part to ‘loss’ is ‘found.’

Found may simply look like noticing inner strength. It may be recalling

memories when we surprised ourselves with our resilience.

I have concluded a week-long

Writer's Retreat with my two best cookbook buddies

with author Jennifer Louden, author of A Women's Comfort Book

and many others.

It was enriching, introspective, and so lovely to be in adobe

and-jewel-toned Taos (and now Santa Fe).

Thank you for your flexibility with Yoga classes.

And thank you most kindly for your warm and thoughtful

email responses to last week's email.

I am truly grateful

I THINK I CAN