The truth is, moving from the city to the country, adding Mom to our household, adding 11 feral cats to the family, and studying for and starting a new career in real estate threw me for a loop. It has been four years and I am coming out of the fog.

If I share with you my trip back out into the open, high places from the valley of un-creativity and the daily grind, maybe it will inspire you to climb out of your own hole. I hope so.

My only key to consistent creativity and reliable workflow is habit. Not just any habit, but habit that brings joy! I have missed my daily walks in the city and its country counterpart, walks in Zilker Park. Where we live now, there are times of day when you take your life in your hands just walking the neighborhood. Everyone has acreage, the roads are narrow and winding, vehicles are fast, and to leave the pavement means to schmooze with the chiggers and the snakes in tall forage.

Walking the same area day after day is quite stimulating because I can ponder the changes I see over time. Whether the changes are small, like downed branches after a storm, or large, like the change of season or new construction, I contemplate how the newness fits into what I previously understood about the landscape.

I‘ve set for myself the task of making a drawing every day and taking a walk every day, both steps that will set me back on my creative path.

Incidentally, I have made some mosaics during this mostly-fallow period that are among my favorites, and I attribute those successes to all the consistency that came in the years before the great personal upheaval. I was riding on the coattails of the work that came before. I must get back into the flow of life, into the flow of creative work, and do it in the only way I know how: habit.

“Leslie”, the back side