Synchronicity – events that seem related but are not obviously caused by one another

A week ago I saw a flyer advertising baby sitting and took down the number. DH and I had been talking about how we’re finally ready to start letting someone take care of Bean for a couple hours during the week while we work together on the house, so we called. She was wonderful, and tonight she came and spent an hour with Bean while DH and I walked down town together like teenagers—just us, holding hands.

We stopped for chai (for me) and espresso (for him) and a chocolate filled pastry (to share, licking the chocolate off our fingers), and then went to the bookstore where I devoured (on a mini artist date) the glossy spreads in design magazinesand DH wandered off to the fantasy section.

When we left the bookstore it is snowing gently. Back home, Bean was happy and the babysitter was happy (which made me unbelievably happy, and terribly relieved). After she left, friends stopped by and we had an impromptu takeout dinner—pad thai, dumplings, tofu, spicy noodles. Then I took over the table with my boxes of scraps, paints, gel, glue sticks, brushes.

I've booked three art showings in cafes this week, and I'm unbelievably excited. (One thing I have done as a result of the Artist’s Way has been to acknowledge and set the ball in motion on some of the things that I've had on my dream list for way too long. Cafe art showings has been one of those things.) For the first time since I was a kid, I’m finally allowing myself to say it regularly. I am an artist.