New art for the Bethel Street Gallery in Honolulu.

"Mermaid Daughter" 12" x 12"

This is definitely a summer of newness...new things are forming all around. New books, new ideas, new paintings, new thoughts, and of course....this new little baby fish that I'm growing in my belly! 

Some days I feel like a noodle, swimming through the changes with the ease of an eel. Other days I feel like one of those busy little fish that dart around the sea, turning so fast you can barely imagine how they managed it, eyes wide. And yet, more and more I've been feeling like a great pufferfish. Uh, yeah.   

I turned into a pufferfish extraordinaire when I went lap swimming the other day... slid into a lane that was crowded with busy lunchtime swimmers, adjusted my goggles, and kicked off from the wall, thinking to myself, "I'll show ye, busy lap swimmers! I will swim just as fast as you!'  I'm not really sure what gave me this blast of delusion, but oh man, was I in for a shockaroo. 

Instead of the usual swift, free glide that I would normally feel when I kicked off from the wall, I just sort of...hung there, motionless in the water. No momentum. No water gushing past me as I started to swim. Nope. Just me, hanging in the water, my belly acting as a giant flotation device. I swam with everything I had, and still didn't really get anywhere, my body just kind of lulled back and forth, side to side as I exerted myself with extreme fishy gusto. Sigh..

It didn't take long before I accepted my fate, moved over to the quiet 'slow' lane where I belonged, and had a very relaxing, and enjoyable swim. Life seems to be a lot like that these days. Me, rushing forward, only to realize that it's better for me just to swim myself over to the slow lane, and go with the flow...