The WOW of the internet

Almost a year ago I made a vision board that now hangs in my bedroom. The topic was ‘my writing life’ and included armchair or story-based travel that would span the globe. One of the things I’ve learned later (rather than earlier) in life is to suspend whatever it is that has us trying to fix the how that something will come to be. If you’ve watched The Secret, you might recall Jack Canfield talking about this very concept.

So last October I made and hung the vision board. In December I launched this blog. (Clue: it required lotso writing – something I hadn’t really thought about beforehand.) I quickly realized that pictures were a favorite element to my blog posts. It was during a chapter task in The Artist’s Way that I did what Julia Cameron refers to as a “creative u-turn” and rediscovered photography. And then flickr.com came into my life.

Browsing photos online became a favorite past-time. My contacts list grew as I admired images posted by photographers from around the world. (There’s another clue!) One of the most incredible photographers goes by the i.d. “harvest_ja” and she’s from Japan. Her eye for composition is astounding. Over time we’ve exchanged a few emails. And then today this beautiful package arrived:

It’s a bundle of squares of antique kimono fabric. And two little dolls accompanied the fabric. Along with a lovely little note. I am absolutely wow’d!

Another package that arrived this past week was from Patty, organizer of the International Notions Bag Swap. What a fun surprise to find after returning home from a business trip.

I’m still writing my novel and it does indeed take me and my armchair to exotic lands far away, but the friendships that have evolved in cyberspace are the unexpected ‘how’ of the vision board all about my writing life.