It’s a funny word — enough.  In one sense, it is the racing towards, the trying to get to – will I be enough? will I do enough? love enough? Enough becomes the goal, the pinnacle.  Unless, it’s the other version, when it’s just too much already, and then it becomes way way way too much and we scream from our lungs, “Enough!!!!”
This picture popped into my memories today, of Dominique and I, one year ago today. One year ago. It was already a memory? In a way it seemed like yesterday, and here it was a memory. I guess time is a funny word too. In one sense, this has been a year of waiting, of length, when will this pandemic ever end, but in the same sense, it sped across my life-line and is already a memory. I remember the yellow of this photo. I remember thinking, I want to make use of this year. To not throw it away. To love and create. And not just wait. Because if I did that, then it would be enough, pandemic or no pandemic.
But did I? I hope I did. I tried. I painted more. Wrote more. And I hope everyone could see and feel the love in that. Maybe that’s the only goal.
In 2019, I finished my book Astonish.  Each time I write, I think I reveal just a little bit more. And this one was raw. It takes you on my journey, from being told I was nothing, and turning that into something. Telling myself, “I was going to be bold enough. Brave enough. I was going to be enough, just me, just my tear-stained,

color-filled hands, I was going to be enough to fill that empty frame.

And that had to be something!”

I shared this book first in New York. The teachers of the New York school district raised their hands and cheered. And it was more.

My next trip to present the book would be in Alexandria, my hometown. I was terrified. These people knew me – or thought they did, and that was harder. Would my story, as I told it, be enough for them to actually love me. Would I truly be, in claiming to be enough, actually be enough.

But now, in saying the words outloud, in the letting go, it doesn’t really even matter anymore. In the letting go there is no more chasing after the enough, or the running away from it.

The color of this is peace. Possibly even joy. Maybe yellow. And I can sit in that yellow and just be. Love and create and be.  That’s got to be joyfully enough.  Maybe even astonishing!