A year in the life...

What a difference a year makes!

A year ago, if you had told me what was going to happen, I surely wouldn’t have believed you.

Dec 2008: My father (and only parent that I knew) passes on Christmas day. Dearest friends happen to be in the same city that day and they take us out for Christmas supper. Everything is surreal. Within a couple of weeks, my best friend has her first child. We spend 21 days straight cleaning up my father's apartment, in the worst snow Vancouver has seen in years. The last day of the cleaning, I fly to NY and spend Jan in NY, sifting through the emotions of what has just transpired, as my newly born godson reminds me of the beauty and miracle of life. I come back to the West Coast, take some time out to just “be”. This doesn’t happen. I go through a period of limbo, darkness – and find my way back to one of the greatest teachers I ever had the honour of working with, David M Smith of Fantastic Space Enterprises.

I take an 8-week performer based / core conditioning course that challenges me to a whole new level of thinking. Something in me tells me that I must take hold and keep moving forward. So, I write out my new business plan. I put on my game face and just get out there again. My first real Canadian tour in August.

And that, my friends, was a turning point.

I came back from August and realized that we needed a change. A very big change. Many reasons behind it, and to cut the story down to one more sentence, we pack up our stuff, rent a U-Haul, and drive across Canada to find our next studio space and Canadian home. Canada is a blessed country. It is vast, it is beautiful, and it is now a place I am even more proud of than I ever was before.

We have landed.

Where exactly, I prefer to keep that private, but I have landed in the Maritimes and have found the most beautiful space to build our Canadian home and studio.

So, folks, if you told me last year that I’d be here right now, I would have laughed and told you that you were nuts. Imagine what can happen in the next year!

When you hold something in your mind and in your heart, you can make it happen, even if all the little excuses keep flying around your ears - don't listen to them, do what's right for you, be patient and persistent.

Life is simply too short not to be truly alive. - Rose