THIS IS ABOUT YOU, ISN'T IT?
Come back to yourself. Your life is still here.
This is “Lady Rose.”
I painted her years ago while watching Downton Abbey -on repeat. One character—Lady Rose—captured my attention. She was handed off like a parcel, sent to be shaped into a proper debutante, while her parents fled to India.
Throughout her storyline, I felt her handlers trying to keep her tightly bound—like the central bud of this rose. But oh, how she wanted to be free. You could feel it in her eyes, her steps, her choices. She wanted to savor life, one marvelous bite at a time.
So did I.
Back then, I was in the heat of my own rebellion. I’d found my “potty mouth,” picked up cigarettes, and pulled away from every expectation that tried to tell me who I was supposed to be.
I wasn’t just trying to be wild. I was trying to be noticed.
Somebody, please see me—I’m drowning.
Not in water, but in the flood of “shoulds” and “oughtas” that surrounded girls like me in the early 1970s.
The cultural tide was shifting, but just barely.
And then—along came Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug.
These weren’t just women—they were thunder.
And I read everything LIFE magazine printed about them.
From my little town, I watched them blaze trails in living color.
They gave me the language to believe in something more:
freedom. imagination. possibility.
And now?
Now I live in a high-rise in a deeply red southern town, in the shadow of Liberty University. These days, I rarely meet anyone who even knows the names of those two ball-busting broads who helped women like me believe we could live a life of our own making.
But I remember.
And I bring that energy to the easel.
Today, I’m painting the Blue Ridge Mountains.
But they don’t look like they do in postcards.
They look like they do through my eyes—green laced with lavender, purples tucked into shadows, soft pinks showing up where no one expected them.
Because this is my world.
And I paint it as I see it.
Isn’t that what we’re all here to do?
See the world through our own soul’s lens—
and choose how we want to live in it?
Sometimes my view is gritty.
Sometimes it’s soft as a kitten.
The point is, it’s mine.
And so is the choice.
But you can’t make that kind of choice until you’ve sat with yourself.
Not to judge, not to fix—just to know.
And the more you sit, the more you realize you’ve had the courage all along
to reclaim your dream.
It was just buried.
Under heaps of “musts” and “shoulds” and “don’t rock the boat” rules.
Remove those—and you’ll find you.
Gloria Steinem once said:
“Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities.”
And so, I’ll ask you the same question I asked myself at the easel today:
What are you waiting for?
Your life is waiting for you.
If you’re ready to choose yourself…
To pull back from the noise and finally begin again—
my Reclaim Your Dreams workbook can help you get there.
It’s not a formula.
It’s not homework.
It’s a quiet guide back to you—
the woman who’s been waiting under all the “shoulds” for far too long.
~OR~
Here’s how another option to work with me:
👉 Grab the Reclaim Your Dreams Workbook
👉 Become a member ( subscribe) and step inside the garden
👉 Join the quiet revolution—one dream at a time
~OR~
If my words have helped you come back to yourself, imagine what happens when you say yes, fully. Begin with becoming a member simply by choosing to subscribe. ( Cancel at anytime)