Shadowbox and Starlight

A home for my aspirations.

My dad and me circa 1980.

On the threshold of a new year, sitting in my cozy living room, I glance around at the small yet intentional changes I’ve just made. A glimpse through the doorway to a brand new year, to a new life.

I’ve dug up childhood pictures from when I was young and carefree to remind myself of the joy and hope I had for the future before life started dimming those flames. I’ve placed messages of encouragement around for anybody who will notice — which is mostly me. I’ve created a workspace by the window where the daylight can reach me. My writing books, creativity books, and books of poetry are scattered around my desk.

I’ve added lamps and fairy lights and plants and candles everywhere to create the most welcoming, creativity-inducing space to get the juices flowing. But mostly I made these tweaks to remind myself of the commitment I’ve made — to take myself seriously as a writer, as a person who finds clarity and meaning when I express myself creatively. And so I’ve designed an environment that reflects that commitment.

I’m creating a shadow-box-vision-board — a place that encapsulates my goals and my ideal life. I’m gathering images and objects that I’ll carefully curate to represent my vision for the year, or years, ahead — when I figure out exactly what that is. The real estate is limited, so everything in my shadow box has to be just right.

I intend to put into the box at least one of the mountain pictures I took from this past year’s trip to Boulder, Colorado. It has earned its place there. These images remind me of my experiences and the insights I gained on that adventure. They remind me that there’s a time to wait and a time to take action. And this was the time for action. That trip was spontaneous — an answer to a call to climb a mountain. Sometimes you need to answer the call to adventure when you’re open enough to hear it.

On a whim, I booked this trip after my favourite podcaster, Dr. Andrew Huberman (admittedly, my podcrush) mentioned his recent travels to Boulder on his podcast. I took that as my call. My experience hiking in the mountains taught me that when climbing them feels hard, it's my inner mountains that are really challenging me. It reminds me that doing hard things propels me to dig deep into my reserves — and that’s where I find the gold. I learned that the greatest rewards can be found in persevering when I want to give up. I learned that my limits aren’t where I thought they were and that I don’t even know where those limits are. And maybe that’s piqued my curiosity to find out, to get a little closer to that edge. But the most important thing is that when I discover I can do hard things, I gain trust in myself. And that is the most valuable lesson. I need that trust in order to move forward.

When I recently lost trust in myself, I was paralyzed and anxiety-ridden, unable to act. It happened in 2023 — a tough year, to put it mildly. I spent all of it going through cancer treatments and trying to get to the bottom of my child’s health issues. I spent the second half of it tending to the wounds of a relationship gone sour, which ended traumatically. It was the year my sense of self was eroded, which I wrote about in my piece He Ripped Open a Hole in Me.

But 2024 was better. Just about any year was better than 2023, except for a couple of horrible ones I’m glad are behind me (2013 and 2016 to name two — whose stories are for another time). The changes I’m seeking in my career, finding meaning in what I do, and recognizing my need to nurture my creativity have been threads running through my writing, and my life, these past two years.

I’ve been thinking endlessly about returning to school and pivoting my career. It’s scary as heck and exciting at the same time. Being a single mom of three kids, and hanging onto the end of my forties by my fingertips, I can’t make these kinds of changes lightly. My pivot has to be at the correct angle with only a small margin of error — no more than a few degrees one way or the other. Or at least that is what the judgemental voice in my head is telling me. Can I make a mistake? Maybe a small one or two, but no big ones.

All I know right now is that I’m a little lost and looking for the next path. There are so many of them with twists and turns so I can’t see what’s around the curve without venturing out a little. So I guess that’s what I need to do: venture out. I need to look at all the paths in front of me, figure out which one seems right at this particular time, and strike out to see where it leads. The difficulty is in choosing, but not choosing has been my default for too long. What will guide me to the right path is seeking the things I’ve chosen to put in my shadow box, rather than on any particular outcome.

Perhaps this creative space I’ve made for myself is my shadow box. The name seems ironic since what I really want to do is to shine. But without light, there is no shadow.

If this shadowbox is my microcosm of aspirations, let my home be the macrocosm — the place that allows me to live out those dreams.

And so while I search for the tangibles for that little box, I’ll start with these things, the intangibles, which are at the core of what I’m aiming for:

Clarity, love, joy, hope and…

Security - in knowing that I can take care of my family and dare to take risks in my creative life doing what I love.

Courage - to be myself, to dare to express myself genuinely, authentically, even playfully, and to find out where I shine — doing what I'm good at and what allows me to serve others joyfully.

Confidence - in myself, in my decisions, in my ability to be creative and spend my days doing what I love and making a difference in the world.

Faith - that being myself is just what is needed, to let my light radiate — like a star that shines by just being.

This notion that stars shine their light by just ‘being’ came out of this poem inspired by a prompt from

Beth Kempton

. Stars emit light for as long as they exist without trying to be anything other than what they are. And we can still see their light long after the fire has gone out.

an ancient star

its flame emanates

light cast long ago

telling a story

with its being

a story

without words

Thank you for reading! I appreciate having you here and sharing my words with you.