10/24/2024
I'm so saddened ... I love her work. It always brings me peace, grounding ... a reminder of all the Earth provides ...
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"After 4660 consecutive days, the STILL chain has been broken.
This photo was taken at our house one week ago on October 4, 2024. The fire was eventually extinguished but the house sustained significant fire, smoke, and water damage by the time the firefighters—bless them all—decided their work was done. We don’t know the exact cause. We are still dazed and very sad, with a very long road ahead of us. Our home was quirky and spare and had begun to show its age, but it fit us and our unusual professional-creative lives well, and was the place both of our children will always think of as “home.”
There is good news amid the bad. Nobody was hurt, including our dog who was in the house when the fire started. We will soon be in a stable living situation for the year or more it will likely take us to rebuild. In the midst of this minor tragedy we remain acutely aware of greater tragedies all around us, and of people in greater need than we.
Please forgive us in advance for not being very good online communicators for a few weeks. Please also forgive us for the jarring tonal clash that will certainly result from our nursing this wound semi-publicly, while simultaneously continuing to promote two recently published books that we love and believe in and that require our ongoing efforts to publicize.
As many of you know, I also have an 88 year old Mom who is requiring significant attention. As a result, my plate has officially runneth over. After 4660 days, the chain has been broken, and I will be taking a break from STILL for the near-term. All my camera equipment was destroyed in the fire, along with all my nature collections. The interesting thing is that I already miss my daily practice and I sense it would be a very healing ritual right now. As gutted and dazed as I am, I am still noticing little moments of beauty every day and thinking to myself "oh, that would be perfect for STILL". I plan to come back to STILL, switching back to a black background when I do (that was planned prior to the fire :-). I hope to resume no later than January 1, 2025. But it could be sooner once we get ourselves–and my mom–settled into new homes.
In the meantime, thank you all for being part of a web of healing connections that is both virtual and very real.
Much love.
P.S. There is really nothing anyone can do to help right now. We are safe, and will soon be settled into long-stay housing. But since so many of you are asking what you can do…I will simply suggest that supporting our creative work–in particular our two books–by buying them, gifting them during the holidays, reviewing them on Amazon, and talking them up to friends and family–would be a huge boost during difficult times.
