Review of 2024 - Does the Dust Ever Settle?

It's already mid May 2025 as I write this and post-date it. I debated even writing this post because I'm in such a different headspace now than I was when 2024 ended.  The chaos of political upheaval has dominated the environment and erased so many things that were being built, but this post isn't about 2025, it's about 2024, and I will try to bring the previous year back into focus...

Once I regained some personal footing back in Manhattan with a place that felt lovely, abundant, safe, and nourishing to call home again, I turned my focus to whatever work I could accomplish.

Even though I had a space to practice Reiki in person in Union Square, most of my clients were requesting phone meetings and distance healing work that fell more into the intuitive wellness counseling and medical intuition category.  Several of my websites and domains were hacked with ownership transfers or put on auction markets at prices that didn't make sense for the level of client work that was coming via web, so I turned my focus to whatever I could do by word of mouth and personal contacts and connections that didn't require a web presence to work together.  I didn't have the bandwidth to sit down and figure out how to recover all of the domains and websites and everything that went with them.  I had just enough bandwidth to show up for the commitments I had made well in advance when I wasn't sure if I was going to find a place to land back in Manhattan.

Bandwidth is such an important and sometimes unpredictable thing.

I tried so very hard to do office style laptop work at home and it just wasn't working out.  I kept feeling distracted by the elements of home that called me back into a caretaking mode even when it was just dishes or little things in corners.  Libraries and most coworking spaces weren't working for me either because they were heavily occupied and sometimes came with unpleasant people and a lack of quiet or space to focus.  The frustration of not feeling productive in so many different places made me really question what it was that I needed in order to feel focused and centered into laptop work?

Part of the problem was just the mental bandwidth available to do anything other than keep up with divorce issues.  Four years into a divorce process that still wasn't resolved, wasn't moving quickly on any courthouse waiting list, and just kept piling on more and more document negotiations and legal invoices and threats and and and... when would it ever end?  Unfortunately, this was where so much of my bandwidth was going.  Managing the emotional toll.  Managing the reasoning to simply be met half way on anything.  Managing the many different interpretations of "half" or "fair".  Managing other people's threats and emotional blow outs by tiptoeing around just the right language that won't break a single eggshell and send everything backward all over again.  It was mental and emotional olympics and it was exhausting.

I wish I could say 2024 was the year it all ended, but it wasn't.  It was one of the most tense and frustrating years in the process.

There's no evidence of this emotional toll or process anywhere other than my journals, which became one of the only "safe" emotional outlets, because sometimes even sharing things with close friends or family would upset them to a level that made them frustrated as well, and I really didn't need doubled frustration.  When my mind and body remember what was going on in 2024 behind the scenes, it feels overwhelmed with exhaustion, tears, and feelings of hopelessness.  Nothing felt like it was under control or moving in a productive direction, just endlessly spinning on a carousel of insanity.

The one thing that was moving in a positive direction?  Travel.

Mom and I finally made use of cruise itineraries opening up and credits previously booked in 2020 that got pushed back year after year for health concerns and global safety concerns.  Cruising also became a way to save some money and take a break from NYC expenses on essentials like food and transit.  The bonus was that my mother and I could spend some quality time together and make memories in some new cities and continents together.  This would be the year she crossed her 6th and 7th continents off her list with a trip to Antarctica and Asia and I was grateful that I could be with her for those milestones.  These were also her reward trips for making it to the other side of heart surgery successfully, and healing in a way that gave her options to keep adventuring.

What else was possible?  Caretaking.

You see, not having a consistent home base for essentially 2 full years taught me how many people needed caretakers.  For their homes, their gardens, their cars, their pets, and their health.  The things I didn't have made me more available to a whole bunch of people who needed help with the things they did have.  Even as I now had a home base established in NYC, I'd fallen into such a heart-based caretaking pattern of helping people, that some of those requests and commitments extended well beyond the exchange feeling equally beneficial.  Much like running a business and weening clients off of my services, it took a while to ween some friends and family off of me being their on-call caretaker, when they had considered me always readily available to help.  My empathetic heart was keeping me in a familiar pattern and making it difficult to get back out of it, but when I look back now, I can also see that with limited bandwidth, all I was really capable of was continuing similar patterns that were holding my life together and making it possible to keep getting through the hard parts of life.

With a home base now established in NYC and trying to get back into work, falling into this familiar pattern meant I was now in a pattern of over-giving, over-extending, and over-caring to the extent that I was depleting myself, and it wasn't looking good because no one could really see that I was depleted when I was stuck in a cycle of continuing to give.  I thought I'd developed better awareness and boundaries around this, but sometimes we can't even see where we're starting to slip into old patterns until it starts to hurt again.  I forgive myself.  I didn't have the bandwidth for that awareness either.

I wouldn't even start to gain the bandwidth to switch into a different gear until after 2024.

2024 was also a year of still dealing with major life transitions.  I still needed to find places for things to go in order to stop paying for a storage unit that was now outside of my budget with a steady apartment rent to pay for.  Thankfully I had the grace of caretaking a friend's car, which helped make moving various things around the city to different places possible in exchange for the friend having someone to make sure the car stayed in running condition, good repair, and wasn't accumulating garage fees or NYC parking tickets.

My original plan was never to have anything in storage, only to move it from one apartment to another when I had a new place secured.

When that decision was made without me and without my consent, it also meant that dealing with everything left in NYC would fall on me.  The process was multilayered and complex because I didn't even know what had and hadn't been put into boxes or storage without being made part of the process as it was happening.  That would mean I would open a box I could access in the storage unit, or a few boxes I could put in the storage hallway without blocking the hall, see what was inside, and one by one have to make decisions about whether I had space for what was there or whether I needed to let go of it.

Any idea that I was going to recover cash on anything in that storage unit was quickly met with the reality check of how long items had been in storage, in addition to the 10 years of use before they went into storage.  At least I wouldn't need to buy an entirely new set of kitchen ware, dishes, and pots and pans.  At least I could possibly save some money on not needing to replace everything.  However, there were still plenty of furniture items that wouldn't fit into the furnished rental I ended up in and were too used to have value selling, but too good to trash, so it took a while to steward everything into donation centers and new homes based on how other people valued what each item was worth to them.

It took many months, but once everything had a new place, at least that weight was lifted from my mental and emotional load.  Though to be honest, there are still boxes I haven't gone through that were shoved in the back of the closet because the contents presented too much mental or emotional overwhelm upon seeing them.

For levity and balance, I made the most of being able to reconnect with the creative community of NYC.  

Attending art events, concerts, wild experimental happenings, and wholesome public activities was the way that I reminded myself why all of the challenges were worth it, and especially why making my home in Manhattan was worth it.  The truth is, you have to actively and regularly choose NYC, because it demands a lot of everyone.  If you're lucky, it may gift you a few lucky breaks along the way, but those lucky breaks may also come with some golden handcuffs or violent speed bumps.  The reward comes from finding ways to enjoy the things that make all the challenges feel worth it, and personally, I find a lot of things are still so worth it for me.

Even as I know how hard the year was for me, I still beat myself up about what I couldn't do.

When I say couldn't, my inner coach comes out to scold me and says, you mean you "wouldn't"?  You didn't "choose to"?  Nope, I couldn't.  It comes back to the mental bandwidth issue.  I couldn't focus on putting myself out there in certain ways that would demand I take care of 10 other issues I didn't have time, energy, or skill to take care of when I was just trying to show up for legal meetings, emails, and keep up on not missing important deadlines.  I felt stunted by the processes I had to keep going through in the personal parts of my life, meanwhile feeling like everything else kept sitting there waiting for me to have any time or focus for them.

There were plenty of people who demanded my time in ways that benefitted them, and many fewer willing to compensate me for my time.

I'm grateful I had any paying work at all.  I'm surprised I had any considering it looked like I was suddenly out of business online.  The work came from people who already trusted me, knew my work, and valued what I had to bring to the table.  It made the work of showing up to serve much easier, but the income of new clients nearly non-existent.  Thanks domain and site hackers, without the business, I couldn't really afford your auction ransom either, smooth move on that one.  I digress.  That's a problem to solve for another day, another year.

In the space of huge transitions, it's really important to tune into the "glimmers".

Glimmers are moments when you see something or learn something that lights your heart up, pulls you in, makes you want to know more.  It's not always easy to recognize.  Especially if you're under the weight of a lot of heavy stuff.  Sometimes the weight of the heavy stuff dulls everything around you.  Nothing looks shiny.  Nothing looks bright.  Nothing looks appealing.  You just have to keep going through the mud and everything is covered in mud.  

Glimmers are the guiding lights of intuition and future fulfillment.

Even when you're in the thick of the mud, or the darkness of depression, a glimmer may just appear to be something not completely covered in mud.  Something less heavy.  Something you become glad you showed up for even if you have no idea why you decided to go in the first place, even if you didn't really want to go in the first place, somehow your feet got you there and it wasn't the worst thing ever.

I had glimmers about a job posting that seemed absolutely perfectly aligned with my experience in Arts Grants and Creative Artist Financial Management, as well as my future goals and their service mission.  It inspired me so much that I had energy to go through all the steps, update LinkedIN, prep a new resume, research the organization, find potential collaborative partners and yet... *Crickets*.  No response from the organization, not even after reaching out about other potential collaborations outside of the position.

Here's the thing about glimmers, it still lit me up and motivated me to create a whole bunch of things in the midst of all the mud I was trudging through.  Even with feeling like I had no bandwidth, like I was moving through mud, like I was on a carousel of insanity in other areas of my life.  The glimmer gave me the energy to find the bandwidth, to do the thing, to show up for something my heart really wanted to align with.  What that leads to next, I'm not sure, but all those efforts can still be helpful if another shiny opportunity arises.  Unfortunately a lot of other opportunities I came across felt steeped in mud, and it's really hard to rally when you feel like you're just going to be stuck in more mud than you already have.

What energizes you?

It's a familiar question from my TEDx Talk.  It's another way of recognizing the glimmers.  Sometimes that energy moves to you do something productive and sometimes that energy just helps you make it to the end of a hard day.  So many times my glimmer moment was simply putting something that felt like a glimmer into my calendar so that I could balance out whatever difficulty came before it or after it.  A free performance at Lincoln Center full of beautiful design and music after sitting through another hard meeting of threats and blame?  Yes please!  A poetry reading in the park after facing oral surgery to replace the teeth being destroyed by the stress showing up in my sleep?  Better than going home without having any of that in my life!

The arts always remind me that there is still good in the world and we just have to keep showing up for it.

One of the low key glimmers that always pulls me in and makes me want to learn more are various ways of dealing with sustainability.  Compost.  Farming.  Architecture.  Business Development.  How are people thinking about sustainability and what it means in the context of their field or environment?  What I will do with this glimmer is still a mystery to me other than it ties into a big crazy goal of eventually stewarding a sustainability institute retreat center.  The education always comes to me in interesting ways, but I show up for it whenever I can because I have so much to learn and its one of those contexts of life where we may never stop learning as we continue to evolve.  It hasn't led to anything tangible that I'm aware of yet, other than sharing some of the stories with other people, but it doesn't mean it never will, so I keep showing up because my heart keeps energizing at the opportunity.

I nearly always get a glimmer about showing up for healing clients, even when it means I have to figure how to show up while in the middle of Alaska or Antarctica or Asia.  It's kind of wild how we can do distance healing work and medical intuition from anywhere.  It's also wild to me what information is accessible through intuitive connections.  It's not always as clear as wifi (but sometimes it can be), however it's really cool when it works like an x-ray where we both get a window into things we can't actually see but can feel inside and confirm for each other (though actual medical imaging is needed for anything truly diagnostic in nature - just to make it clear that I work WITH the medical field and not as a replacement for it.)

Are you getting paid for that?

To be honest, I kind of wish I'd never started this trend of publicly posting about work numbers in my annual review, because these years are downright embarrassing.  I know they are just part of the journey, and that it's the embarrassing parts that make the journey more real, more visible, more humble.  I'm also the girl that would press the people who stood on stages to talk about whether that feature in Vogue actually paid them anything and watch people cringe when they said, "well, we got a lot of branding partners from it, but no it didn't pay the electricity bill to run our equipment."  So here I am, on my dinky public stage, baring witness to the valley of my creative career life.  It stings, but I'm gonna do it anyway because it's something I wish more people would do.  "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

Second Photographer w/out Equipment or Post-Production ($1250 day rate)

- 2 Second Photographer Event Gigs 

I don't even own equipment anymore, so this was only possible because a colleague had enough backup equipment to lend me in order to make it work and was willing to take on all the post-production and admin tasks that I also don't have software for.  I was grateful I could still do the work in some capacity, and even scored a feature on the Forbes social media account for a fleeting Matt Damon + John Kerry moment of connection around climate issues.  

Reiki Distance Healing / Medical Intuition / Spiritual Counseling ($150/hr)

- 1 New Client

- 2 Returning Clients

AbundantSphere.com was one of the domains hacked and sold off to an auction site.  The amount of that auction could not even be covered by the amount of clients this year, so the website continues to live in never-never-auction-land.  Thankfully, even without testimonials and information living somewhere online, one brave soul trusted a personal referral and welcomed me into their healing journey.  I also did absolutely no networking or educational events around being a Reiki Master Practioner or Teacher, just no energy for that when I should probably create a new website before doing that again as well.  I'll figure that out another year.

Pricing Workbook for Creatives ($35/book)

- 9 Books Sold Retail

- 4 Books Donated

I honestly don't even know how I sold any books at all.  My promotion game was pretty much non-existent.  I did no educational events.  Maybe a couple people felt sorry for me when they found out about website issues?  A pity purchase is worth a pity party, and I'm here with a 2 buck chuck to celebrate.  I realize that sounds pathetic, but this is also be one of the things that I beat myself up about- not being able to help more people during this time- which also means putting myself out there and being self-promotional for the benefit of the creative industries conducting better business practices.  Kettle = black.

Caretaking (volunteered heart work)

I didn't keep track this year, but it didn't consume my year as much as it had before either.  It was a bit less scheduled and I couldn't actually help as much as I'd been able to in the past.  I haven't run the numbers on what it takes to be a live-in caretaker since having an apartment in NYC, but I really should because it does still come up as a request from time to time, but now the time comes with more location changing costs and an empty room to be covered even if I'm not there.  Based on what I already know, it probably wouldn't be affordable for most of the people I would naturally volunteer to help, so I don't even really consider putting a price on it right now.  

Instead, I volunteer when I can for the good vibes of knowing people I care about can get some reprieve or help in their life because someone they trust can be there for them.  Lord knows so many people have been there for me and I do not take that for granted in any way whatsoever even if I can't offer cash gifts in return.  That being said, some friends still wanted to throw some cash my way for helping them out, which was much needed, and really helped me feel valued as a caretaker dedicating significant time to helping others.

I would like to transfer my caretaking/volunteer hours into more community based volunteering, so I'm contributing to an even greater good again.  I have some ideas about what that might look like, but again, that will likely have to be attempted in a different year because I'm still playing catch up on all the transitions in my life.

Sanctuary Sustainable Retreat Space (research & info gathering)

I attended an educational composting event on Governor's Island, where the entire island and all of the vendors on the island are engaged in creating a closed waste management system, where basically everything brought into the island is completely compostable, reusable, or recyclable.  I only scratched the surface of what they're doing in the time we had, but when I saw the compostable plastics completely breaking down in the compost pile started just a few months ago and turning into fertilizer and soil for the farm and garden, I was definitely impressed.

In the same vein, BioBAT has an art space that ran an exhibition and gallery show on what's possible when artists collaborate with bioengineering and microbiology.  Everything from decorative beading for fashion design being made from sea kelp that is completely dissolvable when submerged for extended periods of time, to ways that useful bacteria can be used to clean sewage systems and provide color-signaled chemistry changes before reaching harmful levels.

There's a Japanese Garden in Woodley Park that is actually part of the Tillman Water Reclamation Plan in the Los Angeles Metro Area.  It was very cool to see how they used something as mundane and municipal as water treatment to craft a public Japanese Garden worthy of comparing to competition and education gardens around the world.  Some of the plants and amphibians play their part in filtering the water, while others play a role in signaling water quality or microbiome health issues in the water system.

Speaking of water quality and microbiomes, during OHNY, I got to see what the Brooklyn School of Inquiry is doing to create a food farm in their rooftop greenhouse.  Students are learning about water containment from run off water and how to use plants and fish to make sure it stays healthy for circling back into their classroom micro farms.

One of the biggest rooftop farms in Brooklyn is actually Brooklyn Grange.  I was able to tour that space in order to see how rooftop farming in an urban environment is dealing with issues that concern developers but can also support and sustain more rooftop farming development in urban areas.

Did you know that growing your own food in public parks has been illegal in New York City for a long time?  Community Gardens have been changing that in more closed communities, but so far the only completely open public Foodway is at Concrete Plant Park in the Bronx.  This foodway provides structured public education and access to growing foods in a public park setting and it was interesting to learn about the challenges they face regarding the public nature and individual stewardship required.

There was one more sustainability visit, and that was to Aptera Motors HQ, which is in a race to become the first solar powered passenger car.  My dad has been a super fan from the beginning and he keeps holding onto the vision in the hopes of being able to drive one in his lifetime.  The high impact solar panels and perhaps  electrical systems may already be applicable in things like electric golf carts or RVs, but I haven't been tracking the technology developments as closely as he has.

There may have been more smaller initiatives I encountered along the way, but I think what this collection of resources and locations speaks to is how my heart has been pulling me in this direction and how it pulled pretty hard this year to discover some great resources and knowledge banks right in the thick of urban areas.

Firsts and notable destinations of 2024:

Sometimes this list of travel designations makes me feel guilty.  It is such a privilege to be able to travel with an American passport, but I have to remember that sometimes this is only possible because of the chaos and nothing working out the way I would like it all to work out.  If I'd been hired for any of the jobs I really wanted, I wouldn't have been able to do this.  However, because I wasn't hired and didn't get the opportunities I wanted, I made the most of the time as an opportunity to travel and explore the world.  I traveled with my mother, who had built up all these travel credits for her retirement that she didn't get to take during the pandemic, and accompanying her would end up saving me money on cost of living in NYC with regard to food, transit, and life basics.  It would all be covered on ship, or even more affordable outside of NYC.  In the process, she would have someone she trusts with her as she encountered her first extended trip through Antarctica and Asia - the final two unexplored continents in her travel diaries!  I still needed one more continent to catch up to her after this.  I have no idea how many more trips like these will be possible, and how things will shake out with her health, so we are both just trying to make the most of what's possible in the chaos and unpredictability of life.

- San Antonio, Chile
- Ancud Chanel, Chile
- Chilean Fjords
- Coyhaique, Chile
- Patagonia, South America
- Brujo Glacier, Chilean Glacier Alley
- Punta Arenas, Chile
- Ushuaia, Argentina
- Drake's Passage, Antarctic Ocean
- Antarctica Scenic Cruising
- Charlotte Bay & Deception Island, Antarctica
- Elephant Island, Antarctica
- The Order of the Moss Back 
- The Order of the Red Nose
- Falkland Islands
- Peninsula Valdes, Argentina
- Punta del Este, Uruguay
- Montevideo, Uruguay
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Bish Bash Falls State Park, New York & Massachusetts
- Shirley Chilsom State Park Eclipse Watching!, New York City
- Point Dume State Beach, Malibu, California
- St John's Bay, New Brunswick, Canada
- Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada
- Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
- Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada
- Saguenay, Quebec, Canada
- La Cote-de-Beaupre, Quebec, Canada
- Baie-Comeau, Quebec, Canada
- Havre-St-Pierre, Quebec, Canada
- Cox Cove, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
- St Anthony, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
- St John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
- Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
- Bangkok, Thailand
- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- Jakarta, Java, Indonesia
- Semarang, Java, Indonesia
- Borobudur, Java, Indonesia
- Surabaya, Java, Indonesia
- Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia
- Cullman Christkindlmarkt, Cullman, Alabama

Review of 2023 - Finding Peace After Chaos

This feels like the first time I've had personal bandwidth to write on this blog since June or May of 2020. It seems that sometime in January of 2023, I attempted to catch up on recording the craziness of the last few years just by reposting instagram posts, which has taken the place of of the longer blog format. Reading what I wrote at the end of 2022 or the beginning of 2023 reminds me of what has and has not come to fruition. As for "miracles" that I had hoped for at the beginning of this year, I actually lost sight of that word somewhere along the way as a point of focus. In spite of that, there have actually been just the right amount of miracles happening in the most important ways.

First is that my mom agreed to open heart surgery, a suggested course of action after four years of discovered heart murmer. A surgery that she was terrified of and convinced herself that what she was expereincing was the exhaustion of age or a symptom of post-retirement depression, but was actually a hardening of an aeortic valve. I did my best to reason with her and suggest that it be better for her to choose to have the surgery with a vetted medical team she trusts, than to be surprised by a major heart failure and have surgery with an ER doctor. The miracle was her agreeing, the rest was good medical science. The surgery was successful, and now she has a much better chance of living to the age of seeing her grandkids finish high school.

Second biggest miracle and hope for this year was to find an apartment back in NYC on a small business owner budget with miscellaneous variable income (whose business was largely put on hold during the pandemic). I applied to 41 NYC Housing Connect apartments since October 2021 and only 3 have closed their lotteries since I started applying, none of which my lottery number or qualifications made me eligble for. While no apartments came through traditional avenues, one did come available by way of dog sitting turning into developing friends that feel like family, who have come to know me well enough over these last couple years to know how good my word is and how well I take care of the spaces I live in. This has been the biggest blessing for me personally ever since I was told that the apartment I was living in since 2013 and planning to continue subletting through fall 2022 was suddenly no longer an option a year earlier than I had planned or prepared to move.

The third biggest miracle is something that I have shared very little about publicly, but it has been such a large part of these last few years that has had an impact on all aspects of my life.  The miracle came when the NYC court system stepped in and helped create a better set of boundaries and guidelines in my divorce case that would finally make it possible to recover some mental energy and time.  From the outside everyone has said this case "should be so easy" but unfortunately it has been anything but easy.  The divorce process has taught me the many ways people can redefine "fair" and that lawyers make more when they can keep clients fighting. Something that I hoped could be resolved with a mediated agreement in a year or less will now be entering a fourth year and still has no court date in sight. Based on my marriage, I never would have guessed my divorce would be this difficult. Unfortunately this process can bring out the worst in people and every time I thought things couldn't get worse, I've been proven wrong. The process of trying to give the benefit of the doubt against all odds and proposing multiple opportunities for resolution has consumed so much personal bandwidth that I will never get back in time, energy, or money, no matter what comes of it all.  I have stopped feeling hopeful about an amicable or swift resolution.  My only hope remains in the court to eventually deliver a fair resolution, whenever that will take place. A miracle would be an equitable resolution before the court needs to step in once again.  It's disappointing and saddening to think about it, especially as I've witnessed so many other swift and easy divorces across my lifetime, but I do my best to move onward in spite of it all.  

I'm grateful for all the support that my friends and family have offered in the space of so many challenges and difficulties. I've been given so much unexpected grace in times when I felt so lost and didn't even know where to look next. There are so many little miracles that have happened along the way, and even more amazing is that they just arrived without asking. THANK GOD. If I didn't believe in a larger loving force of the universe before, this year has convinced me it truly exists and moves through hearts, hands, and voices in the most surprising ways. It took having all the rugs removed from under me, to force me to let go of all the control I thought I once had, in order to experience so much surrender to the forces of the universe. I was forced into simply being a witness at a time when I had no bandwidth to do anything but keep showing up each day to keep moving forward in whatever way I could. In this space of total surrender, I got to witness the magic that is possible even when my own power feels limited. 

If I can get a little spiritual for a moment, my life journey before 2020 was one of seeing how far I could take having total control over everything in my life from being an artist to a business owner to after 2020,  a journey of seeing what's possible when I have little to no control over anything that comes my way other than what I can say yes or no to as it comes.  Where I once saw myself as the total master and manifestor of my own universe, I now see my role as a co-creator in this life with many more forces at play churning wheels and possibilities outside of my control, some which can even be better than I'd ever imagine for myself.  Damn it would be nice if I didn't have to learn it all the hard way.  I'm just grateful for all that I've learned, even as I know the learning is never finished.

Once I finally had a chance to get some grounding and settling into a space I could regularly return to in NYC, my bandwidth to do more than just plan my next move returned to focusing on business activities.  I've had two other side businesses to grow and several big goals since retiring from photography.

One big goal was publishing the Pricing Workbook for Creatives, which I accomplished in 2018, however, the pandemic and then subsequent divorce put a big kink in promoting the book.  I did the best I could while traveling but once the divorce began, the sheer amount of back and forth with lawyers and layers upon layers of PDF documents ended up overloading my gmail inbox and even halted my email account for a while.  I was trying to do it all with very little income coming in and personal assets needing to be essentially frozen until divorce negotiations would be finalized- a major unexpected and unplanned wrench in what would be needed to move forward again.

By the way, I share all these very personal details in the event that anyone reading this might face something like this in their future, or may be in the midst of facing the reality in this moment, or maybe they want to feel better about how much easier their situation was.  I also share to remind myself of what fires I've walked through in life, when I eventually forget how difficult things were.

My last tax filing as a retired and married joint person also meant I didn't qualify for a lot of the pandemic and unemployment support that other business owners qualified for, which put additional stress on maintaining multiple business systems and websites throughout the pandemic.  It was a big shit show of things falling apart all at once and all I could do was watch it all fall apart while I just tried to keep myself together mentally, emotionally, and physically, trusting that I would eventually be able to put it all back together at some point when things were settled.  I'm only now gaining the bandwidth to begin some of that process again.

I've moved locations over 200 times since July 2021.  That's not an exaggeration.  I've been counting because its so mind boggling to me what this experience has been like.  Moving to another place on a weekly average takes a lot of logistics, organization, planning, and recombobulating.  I mentioned it in some of my travel blogs before when it was just vacation travels, but its even more bandwidth consuming when it involves things like learning a new house or caretaking for pets or helping people out or being a companion in whatever way is needed as part of an agreement to stay somewhere.  Just having one place I can return to again frees up at least 50-70% of my headspace that was being consumed just by location changes.  A week is a good amount for a vacation, exploration, or learning new things but settling into a productive or creative work routine requires at least a month, or well-oiled hands-off systems that can be run on just a couple hours of focus a week.

One part of the divorce that I had to consider was if I'd even keep using the married name that I'd built so much of my businesses under.  The name that I had hundreds of client reviews under, that I won awards under, that I had photography published in magazines under, that copyright was held under, that licensing was under, that royalties were under.... ugh.  A name that I had invested thousands of dollars into branding and creating a personal brand around... double ugh.  Legally I am entitled to keep my married name as long as I want or need for business and personal purposes, but emotionally, I felt I could no longer carry that name into the future with where I would be going next.  However, I also had a difficult time returning to my unmarried name.  It felt childish and simple, like an inexperienced version of myself.  

I considered creating an entirely new name and what that might mean.  I played with options related to ancestors, pen names, names based on meanings, but eventually arrived at a version of my given name that felt like it encompassed my authenticity and clarity of spirit but also my growth and all the challenges I'd overcome.  As a business owner, I also wanted to find a name that I could secure domains and emails for in this ridiculously crowded online space, and thankfully a form of my given name was still available despite "Anne Marlow" being exponentially more frequently used than "Anne Ruthmann".  I try not to think about all the creative assets that I will eventually be divorcing from as well when I finally move fully and legally into my new name again.  *sigh*  I also do my best not to resent the many ways that men don't have to go through this added nonsense and additional set of expenses, time, and hassle in a divorce.  I'll try not to digress further into the exhaustion of a process that is still not fully finished.  However, I think its good to share these things for anyone who hasn't wrestled with these issues before, or may be considering the future potential of their business decisions.

With some sense of where I might be headed next, and some time to consider my options based on my goals for the decade or more ahead, it became clearest that I needed to finish promotion of the Pricing Workbook for Creatives and take advantage of this time while my name still remains legally unchanged.  I have changed my name in places where it's easy to do so like Instagram, as well as where it can be doubled up with my married name on spaces like LinkedIN and Facebook, but there are still many layers yet to undo, create, or recreate under a new name as I go along.  In the meantime, my goal is to help the Pricing Workbook for Creatives become a standard guide for how to think about building sustainable and growth-oriented creative businesses.  Eventually I would like that work to outgrow me and be adopted by a larger textbook or financial company that teachers and coaches can utilize and reference as a standard of practice.  To me, that would feel like the equivalent of seeing a teenage kid graduate from high school or college, since this workbook is my only "baby" to be birthed into the world so far.

I have continued taking business consulting clients and reiki clients and medical intuition clients, but I'm no longer taking private or commercial photography clients.  My equipment is so out of date now and I've been outside of the software upgrade cycle for over five years such that it's just better to refer photographers who have stayed up to date on things as they have changed over the last five years.  If a travel company wanted me to just take iPhone photos, I might consider that again since I had a lot of fun when I did it with Enterprise Car Share... but other than being hired as an iphonographer... I've lived my best professional photographer life to the fullest extent of my dreams and now I'm happy to be passing the wisdom and learning I gained on to others!

There are two other goals that need a little extra wind in the sail from the universe to pursue more fully:

1. Creating academically accepted research and writing on reiki as a wellness practice with researched outcomes and possibilities for neurology, oncology, or psychology (or all of the above!)

2. Creating a sustainable retreat space for wellness workshops, creative development, and advancing sustainable land, food, water, waste, and building practices... preferably in the Hudson Valley Catskills region... but open to others or creating a model that can be implemented in other places.

All of these things take a significant investment of time, energy, and resources.  It may take the rest of my life just for the two goals above, which I'd be perfectly happy with.  Right now I have time, and finally I have energy again, and eventually I'll build the resources back up again too.  However I'm also open to things magically appearing and being gifted and granted in alignment with these goals to quicken outcomes for the benefit of the larger good.  My ego has been fulfilled in my success toward goals as an artist and now I see the time I have left as being all about giving back and creating a better future for others.  Seems like a good use of the second half of life, right?!

In spite of all the changes, bandwidth limitations, resource limitations, and moving from place to place, I was able to do some work along the way, and had a few book sales along the way as well without being able to do much of any promotion.  Granted, I probably know most of the people who purchased each book by personal referral, but a sale is a sale, and I'm deeply grateful for the friends and acquaintances who believe in this work and want to support it!  

I'm going to give you the super realistic breakdown of where things are right now since this is essentially the first year that truly feels post-pandemic and post-divorce fallout.  I also do this for myself to remember where I was when I had to start everything from scratch again, so I can look back and remember how it all unfolded.  This year included a lot of caretaking for others, and now that my mom is in the clear, I've almost forgotten how much of this year went to supporting her in a variety of ways through this big open heart surgery journey she underwent.

Caretaking for Others (Voluntary Heart Work)

- 9 Extended Dog/House Sits

- 2-3 Months of Surgical Preparation, Hospital Support, & Rehab Care for Mom's Open Heart Surgery

- 1 Week of Driving, Doctor Visits, Laundry, & Take-out Support for Cousin w/ Broken Foot

While I never really considered myself or my life journey as one of a caretaker.  I guess falling into healing work has brought a lot more of that into my life in various ways.  A long time ago I had reprioritized my life to put family at the top, and this is the most weighty manifestation of that to date.  The need to secure housing along the way until finding a place to land again in NYC also put dog care and house sitting at the forefront as well.  I know I'll never regret the time spent supporting family on their healing journey, even if it means putting some of my goals on a back burner to do so.  Work will always be waiting, but time with family only gets shorter by the day.

Pricing Workbook for Creatives ($35/book)

- 9 Books Sold Retail

- 5 Books Sold Wholesale

- 4 Author Copies Donated

I was able to do a little big push near the end of the year in connection with Miami Art Basel and reconnecting with some of my favorite artists in Michigan.  My dear friend and owner of Ypsi Art Supply grabbed wholesale copies for her shop, and if there's some interest, I plan to come back to do a kick-start workshop with the book in the early spring when I return for a wellness workshop I've agreed to do.  While bookstores may not carry the Pricing Workbook for Creatives in stock, most independent bookstores and major book retailers can special order copies into the store for you if you'd like to support your local in person bookstore and not just Amazon.  Online sales of the book still feel a bit throttled by one unsupportive 1 star verified Amazon review that disses all the things I thought were 5 star benefits, but it was a lesson in learning that I should have done all pre-sales through Amazon rather than an offline early bird discount.  Lesson learned, moving forward anyway.  I never published this book for popularity or best seller rankings.  It's always been designed as a practical guide to getting the creative industries heads out of their butts around defining and defending the value of creative work starting with the artist.  The book is a mission to rise all tides and shift an entire community of thought around valuing arts.

Abundant Sphere - Reiki Healing / Medical Intuition / Spiritual Counseling ($150/hr)

- 3 New Distance Clients

- 2 In-Person Returning Clients

- 2 Distance Returning Clients

This work continues to amaze me every time I get to do it.  It fascinates me when clients find so much clarity and benefit in what happens in each session.  I learn things, they learn things, and it's just so cool to be in the space where it all unfolds.  I no longer have any hang ups about talking about it or sharing that I do the work.  There will always be skeptics or people who don't understand and don't want to understand.  I waste no time in trying to convince or change their mind.  I only have time and energy for people who want to get to work on their healing journey right now.  The skeptics can wait until I have more support behind me with academic funding and research support to address their defenses.  For now, it feels so good to be able to serve people who are ready and willing to do the work and come by way of referrals from trusted friends and family.

Business Consulting ($5000/day)

- 2 Complimentary Strategy Sessions (friends restarting or revamping businesses after the pandemic)

I'm always up for doing more of this work, but since my online presence looks like a bit of a non-sensical shit show right now with websites down and emails going off into the ether of never never land due to some server issue or routing issue, I have a lot of my own business stuff to resolve first and totally understand why my outward presence could give someone pause about hiring me as a business consultant right now.  I know that I have tried and tested chops for rebuilding, and I also know I have competitions with life events and other priorities taking stage over promotion of this work right now.  It is the most valuable work I do because I know that when I can align a business strategy with someone's way of being and what they are willing to tackle now and going forward, profits flow and increase with ease.  That may sound overly confident, but it's based on seeing it happen over and over again.  I'm also at a place where I don't want to work with someone if they haven't invested in doing the Pricing Workbook for Creatives to gain a better understanding of where they are and where they need to go from where they are.  I got frustrated by doing the basics for people who hadn't done them yet, so I created the book for the basics, and prefer to focus my mental energy and experienced wisdom on people who have gone beyond the basics.

  

Sanctuary Sustainable Retreat Space

- Multiple Informative / Idea Gathering Site Visits

- One New Bioenergy Research Connection

I considered whether or not I should document anything related to this, but one of the surprise happenings while just trying to find places to live frequently has been how little glimmers of light and information have appeared around ways of developing land from scratch or from scraps.  Some memorable moments and new land developments that I came across were... 

In Maui, I got to know people who had bought a little piece of land near the airport that had some banana and mango trees.  They had a little roadside farm stand with the fruit that came from those trees.  They put a couple little self-contained tiny homes on that land to airbnb.  Then they added some food trucks and signs to bring people in from the highway.  Then they started hosting Friday night music gatherings to create a more regular community of interest.  Little by little, one by one, the land develops into something more.

In Pennsylvania, I came across a series of signs on the highway that read,  "Free 100 mile views" and those signs took me all the way up to the top of a hill with little more than a sign about plans for development and a phone number to call if you're interested in the development.  There was also a little self-contained porta-potty and a sign for tent camping site reservations if you wanted to camp on the land.  That weekend, and summer weekends only, there was a pop-up market tent with a table and several bottles of wine labeled "100 Mile View Winery".  Such small beginnings for a much larger vision.

In Vermont, an old barn next to a creek had been converted into a yoga studio with two wellness spaces rented by wellness practitioners in the area.  The bathroom was a compost toilet.  The summer would bring a larger yoga fest with attendees able to camp outside in tents.  A wood fired stove that used wood gathered from the property was able to bake both pizza for sale as well as heat an attached dry sauna.  Most electricity necessary for lighting was otherwise powered by solar.

In Big Island, I was granted some insight on how development of a sustainable community space can get complicated with multiple private interests and scattered agendas all competing for space.  I was also granted insights into how important waste management and community education is for an eco-friendly space to remain sustainable.  This gave me some added foresight of knowing how things might go awry if not considered at the start.

In Maui & New York, I was given a few more chances to take on the tasks of farming in a backyard.  Starting small with what was available and figuring out how much time and energy just greeting the land with water or waste removal and farm animals who need food each day can take.  I found the small scale peaceful, but could also see how quickly it can all become overwhelming for one person.

In New York City, I already have several people in my friend circle who care about sustainable development, but was able to make one more new connection with a researcher around algae waste filtration and power development.  That project will require some proposals and innovation to implement in an urban space, but my nature is to offer whatever I can to help foster or support sustainable development, and it felt good to be able to consider a way to implement something in an urban setting where I am now, rather than waiting only on land acquisition.

Firsts and notable destinations of 2023

- Hiking El Yunque National Forest, Puerto Rico

- Swimming in the La Parguera Bioluminescent Bay of Puerto Rico

- Kayaking in the Fajardo Bioluminescent Bay of Puerto Rico

- Cosmo Thermal Hot Springs of Puerto Rico

- Cabo Rojo Salt Flats of Puerto Rico

- Three Kings Day in Puerto Rico

- Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands

- Cartagena, Colombia

- Embera Village, Panama

- Puerto Limon, Costa Rica

- Punta Langosta, Cozumel, Mexico

- Walpole Island, Canada

- North Fork, Long Island

- Amicolola Falls, Georgia

- Decatur, Alabama

- Birmingham, Alabama

- Ponce de Leon Springs State Park, Florida

- Morrison Springs, Florida

- Lakewood Park, Florida's Highest Point (345' - the lowest of the state high points- ha!)

- Shakespeare in the Park - Hamlet! Central Park, NYC

- Fairbanks, Alaska

- Chena Hot Springs, Alaska

- Santa Claus House, North Pole, Alaska

- Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska

- Whittier, Alaska

- Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska

- Hoonah, Alaska

- Juneau, Alaska

- Totem Bight State Historical Park

- Vancouver, Canada

- Whistler, Canada

- Kamloops, Canada

- Revelstoke, Canada

- Glacier National Park, Canada

- Yoho National Park, Canada

- Sugar Loaf Witches Parade, New York

- Sleepy Hollow Halloween Parade & Aqueduct Trail, NY 

- Prince's Bay Light, Staten Island, NYC

- Emerson Thoreau Amble, Concord, MA

- Mark Twain House & Museum, Hartford, CT

- Hamilton

- El Boqueron National Park, El Salvador

- Sushitoto, El Salvador

- La Libertad, El Salvador

- Hiked Santa Ana Volcano from Cerro Verde, El Salvador

- Babylon City Hall Holiday Train Display, Long Island, New York

- Glenlore Trails Aurora Light Show, Commerce Township, MI

- Beacon Park Light & Art Displays, Detroit, MI

Not having permanence of place means needing to go a lot of places just to have a place to stay, and I did my best to make the most of wherever I was or needed to be by including something fun along the way when I could.  Some of the larger trips were as a companion to stave off pre-surgery anxiety for my mom, or help give her something hopeful to look forward to post-surgery.  She had made a big effort to book a lot of international travel in the years leading up to her retirement, thinking that she might slow down and do more domestic travel in retirement.  Some of those international travel credits got pushed forward well into the future when the pandemic put multiple holds on cruise credits for 2020 bookings, and some of that credit is still to be redeemed in 2024!  What a lesson in business retention and recovery the pandemic has been!

I'm always grateful to be a travel companion, and of course even more grateful when it comes as a gift and creates a period of time when I can recover some traveling expenses and headspace of doing all the logistics of getting from place to place myself.  I used to think I wasn't big on cruises, but when life gets busy and complicated, the all-inclusive nature of a cruise and having other people plan meals and locations each day is such a mental and energetic load-off my mind and energy.  I'm so grateful my mom as well as several close friends consider me a favorite and welcome travel companion- my life is definitely all the richer for their support and travel planning!  I wouldn't go half these places if not for other people creating the invitations in the first place!  I don't take that for granted in the least and feel so deeply lucky and blessed to have so many avid and willing travelers in my life.

I shared many fewer of my experiences publicly this year for a couple reasons.  First, I was just overwhelmed with the travel and location changes I was experiencing.  Sometimes I was the one doing all the driving or navigating, which meant each morning I would just recover enough energy in getting some breakfast before I had to be on the road or in caretaking mode again, leaving little to no time to reflect, digest, compile, and share.  Second, one of the unfortunate aspects of a lengthy divorce has been requiring greater levels of privacy about my life because of the ways my optimism and ability to make lemonade out of lemons is used as ammunition against me.  I've used many more privacy settings this year and kept many more friends and experiences with friends private just to avoid any drama I don't need in my life.  People wrongly assume my joy or optimism means I have a care-free or easy life, instead of acknowledging any of the hardships or immense toll it takes just to stay mentally and emotionally healthy in spite of circumstances like not having a permanent place to live, not having a steady income, and being stuck in a asset holding pattern that continues to perpetuate both circumstances.  The song "I will survive" was written for years like these.

2023 Overall

When I look back at where this year started, what I knew and what I didn't know... this was the year that the chaos from 2020 started to finally settle into place and into more peace.  However, this was not until the end of the year for me.  I can't believe it has taken 3 years since the pandemic and my divorce began just to gain a sense of peace.  Thank goodness I'd developed strong wellness and reiki practices before entering these last few years.  Thank goodness I had enough lived and experienced wisdom to remember that all I needed to do was just keep putting one foot in front of the other even when I couldn't see any ground below my feet.

It has felt like so many of my own goals have been on hold just to survive or to help other people these last few years.  While I have been doing the work that life has asked of me to the best of my ability, it has not felt like the work I was uniquely made to do.  Even so, I don't regret the experiences I've had, because I will always do my best to make the most of whatever situation I'm in.  Even when faced with obstacles and diversions on the road to achieving my own goals, I feel like it is important to see each obstacle as an opportunity.  An opportunity for learning, for growth, for witnessing, for testing our own values, for testing our practice, and for testing what we are committed to at the deepest level.  I feel good knowing that I can look back at my choices and see how they reflect my commitment to family, to friends, to a higher good, to being of service in whatever way I can be, and to continuing to make a difference in spite of whatever odds life throws at me.  I have let go of so much, and this has made room for so much more grace and faith.

2023 January 1 - 7: Puerto Rico - Condado, El Yunque Forest, Loquillo, Coamo Hot Spring, Three Kings Day, Rincon, La Parguera, Bioluminescent Bay

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