Follow Your Path Blog

by Carin L. Reeve

Sliding Door

A sliding door separated where we lived from where my father worked. My dad would slide the door open and pass the threshold into a wonderland of sounds and textures and smells; not all of them good smells, but there was no doubt that he had entered a different place. The shelves were full of colorful boxes with letters and numbers. Things hung from the walls all the way up to the ceiling. There was a desk in the front window, swivel chairs at the counter, and an old mahogany cash register behind the counter. 

by Carin L. Reeve

Creativity or productivity?

I dream of a creative life; of a studio in the backyard where I can spend hours in all of my creative pursuits. The reality is that living a creative life does not compensate well in our capitalistic society and so creativity lives in the small spaces around and in between the more mundane, but necessary, day to day adventures in vacuuming.

by Carin L. Reeve

Stolen moments.

I am a creative person: I write, I paint, I make jewelry, I play piano, I write songs. But, that part of me is separate from the part of me that has a “real job.” I have internalized the typical questions that accompany learning that someone is an artist: “Oh, wow! That’s so nice, but can you really make a living doing that?”

by Carin L. Reeve

Turning the page.

crop artist near colorful paint palette in workshop

Yesterday, I bought a new calendar and turned the page to a new month and a new year. It’s not a clean slate and I won’t be a “new me” in this new year. I am me and I am learning and growing. Each day is a day where I can be more intentional about living my values, where I can be purposeful in pushing my growing edge, and where I can choose to turn the page in order to apply new skills.

by Carin L. Reeve

Going away. Coming home.

I grew up in a small town where everyone looked like me. As far as I knew, the world was full of people who looked like me and believed the same things that I did. I had friends of different faiths, and I just thought it was pretty cool that they got eight nights of presents instead of just one day. And what if they were right about the whole Jesus thing? I mean, it seemed as much of a possibility as anything else I was being taught.