Resilient Fox

These fox bowls remind me of my daughter Anna. She is 

sometimes fierce and quick, other times cautious and quiet, 

always witty and clever. The fox character first showed up 

in my sketch responses to LouAnn Shepard Muhm's poem 

Litany. Litany is about hope and resilience, and the fox

has come to represent resilience, to me.

That this counterfeited window may allow the scent of sedge. --LouAnn Shepard Muhm

Today, I am thinking a lot about resilience, what I wish for
all my loved ones in the face of life's disappointments and
difficult challenges.

When you are truly doing something new, something that
doesn't have a recipe or formula, it takes resilience through
the fear and uncertainty. "Hope begins in the dark, the 
stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the 
right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and 
work: you don't give up."  ― Anne Lamott

Writers and artists know this--our gifts are meant to be
shared. To hoard and hide our gifts is cowardly. We know
our gifts for words or images aren't truly realized until shared,
and possibly help others. Anna, a voracious reader and aspiring
writer, understands this."When writers make us shake our 
heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, 
and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our 
buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, 

or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead 

of being squashed by it over and over again. It's like singing 

on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can't stop the 
raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits 
of the people who are together on that ship.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

That we may gaze out from our husks, toward the greening promise. --LouAnn Shepard Muhm