With the turn of the calendar from one year to another, my subconscious always goes to work puzzling out what my word will be for the new year to come.
Once I sit down consciously with my pen and journal, that word usually makes itself known to me quickly.
And while that was true once again this year—I’ll share that word in a later update—something else came to the surface that I can’t ignore.
It’s a song called Sweet Surrender from one of my all-time favorite artists (since high school art class), John Denver.
🎶 There's nothin' behind me and nothin' that ties me to / Something that might have been true yesterday / Tomorrow is open, right now it seems to be more than enough / To just be here today, and I don't know / What the future is holdin' in store / I don't know where I'm goin' / I'm not sure where I've been / There's a spirit that guides me, a light that shines for me / My life is worth the livin', I don't need to see the end 🎶
Settling into that sweet surrender—the surrender of not knowing exactly what comes next and just being here now, is what I find I need to be able to welcome in joy and artistry when the world is in chaos.
I may not be able to truly live carefree as Denver suggests, and that’s okay. I don’t want to be uninformed; I don’t want to be negligent in caring for those who need it; I don’t want to let go of empathy and compassion for the dark and hard times that so, so many people are encountering.
What I want—what I know is needed—is to continue spreading light in the darkness. To intentionally create connectedness when our vastly connected world somehow feels so divisive and isolated.
January is, to be honest, the hardest month for me to get motivated here in the northeast. It’s cold; it’s dark.
And it’s why I commit, year after year, to the STRADA Challenge—to paint one plein air painting each day of January and share it publicly. It forces me out; it reminds me that plein air painting is the best way to see the colors and values nature provides, that a photo simply cannot capture in the same depth.
Being outside in the snow, wind, and freezing temperatures is a challenge, though, so I’ve been setting up my “mobile office”—my car—and parking along roadside barns where I live, careful not to get plowed in.
When I stare off at these barns and their surrounding fields, I’m transported back to the farm families who immigrated here decades and centuries ago; who ploughed these fields with workhorses, heated their homes with woodstoves, and grew their own food. I think of my great grandmother Leila Collins who made her way here from Ireland—strong, kind, and necessarily resourceful, finding and spreading her joy through knitting, caring for her family, and creative cooking.
I have no doubt these families of the past had times where they felt like giving up. I think about how many winters passed through this land—and the countless people who stood in uncertainty before me, trusting that something would guide them forward.
Maybe that’s what sweet surrender is—it’s not giving up, but giving in to the moment, to the work of being here now. Even as the America we love, the version we are proud of, seems to be slipping from our grasp and not-so-quietly morally deteriorating, we can’t give up. We can’t surrender our joy.
Painting is a main source of my joy. It’s my way of spreading light. It’s my way of creating connectedness.
Perhaps for you that’s songwriting. Or crocheting. Or cooking. Or hosting game nights. Or reading. Whatever it is for you, may you express your joy and in that, find the people who fortify your heart; who remind you that even as one person, you have the power to change the world; who represent all the good this world still has to offer.
So maybe Sweet Surrender is my first official song of the year. It’s more than a word; it’s a feeling. A practice. A quiet return to the understanding that I don’t need to see the end of the story to keep showing up with my brushes, my heart, and my hope. Tomorrow is open. Today is enough. And that, right now, feels like everything.