Day 1. Fight or Flight

“Fight or Flight” 4×4 in, oil on canvas, framed

I don’t usually get very sentimental about the new year and maybe that’s because I get sentimental about almost everything else. But fairly recently, the gallery made four years, and I asked myself this question: what has made you the most proud? It’s not a question I usually ask. I’m more of a “what are the problems we need to fix”  or “how can we make this particular aspect more efficient” kind of a gal. But the answer came to me quickly, and as I think about the new year, it’s cozying on up to me once more asking me to spend some time with it.

But first, a story. When I was young– maybe eight or nine– my teacher explained to my class what a “big fish” story was. She wanted us to understand why a writer might use exaggeration, but really, I think she just wanted us to see how much fun exaggeration could be. She asked us all to write a “big fish” story and told us that she’d pick one to submit to some-important-literary-thing-for-children. She made it so very clear that “big fish” was just a term for a comically exaggerated story and that our stories did not, in fact, have to be about literal fish. Mine was about a bear. A really, really big bear is all I remember though I’m sure it had some other wildly fascinating characteristics. The teacher picked three of our stories and said she was going to read them to the class; we would vote for the one we wanted her to submit. Mine was one of the three. It turns out, it was the only one that wasn’t about a fish. 

Here’s where it all fell apart. She made the big mistake of asking each of us for permission to read our stories aloud, and when she got to me, I could think of nothing more mortifying – not having my story read to the class, but being the kind of person who said yes to such a thing. I said no. She asked again. I could tell she was frustrated with me, but still I shook my head. She really wanted to read it, if only to prove to herself that she had indeed explained that it could be about anything, not just a fish. 

I think about that teacher all the time– I can’t remember her face or her name, just that she liked my story, and I said no to her sharing it. 

Great. There’s your context. Let’s continue.

In 2025 my art gallery– you know, the place I put all my humble little paintings on the walls for just about anyone who wants to to see– hosted a poetry reading. There was a podium, microphone, rented chairs in rows, the whole nine. And the poets! Some were published and some had never read their work to anyone before, and, get this, they just got up there and, well, they just did it. They read what they wrote! I’m thrilled to report that I did too. 

And that, sweet friends, is hands down my proudest moment at the gallery thus far and the proudest I’ve been in 2025. I, the child afraid to be seen but especially heard, handed a microphone to people who had something important to say and chairs to people to hear it. 

I wish I could go back in time and let my teacher read my big bear story. And if we are dealing in fantasy and time travel, I wish I could go back and be the kind of kid who says to Mrs. So-and So, no need for you to read it at all, I’d love to read it myself with all the pizazz and inflections only its author could give.

But I also wish I could have some grace for the shy person I was. The unsure person. The “will you please speak up” person. Because I still know her pretty well. She doesn’t run and hide as much anymore,  but I often try to hide her and often find myself puffing up like some great wild mountain bear threatened by even the most gentle of sounds. 

I’ve named this, my day 1 painting, “Fight or Flight” because maybe both instincts serve us well until they don’t. And maybe it’s okay to grow out of them, into them, and out of them again. Maybe we can just look at the people we were, the people we are, and say, okay. I see you. And then, if we find ourselves lucky enough to have one, to just hand people the microphone already. Who knows how many times they’ve said no before. Who knows what it is that will make them people who say yes. 

I’ve long been the hummingbird who flits away quickly from any perceived danger, but did you know it is also the only bird with the ability to hover?

This month, I’m looking for strength and also quiet. I want to come pounding down the streets to new and interesting spaces (like that one bear in Lake Tahoe that gave me and my family quite the scare when it hopped up onto our porch in search of leftovers). I want to sit in my smallness hovering near unnamable wonders. I want to dart from one thing to the next and also take up all the space I can when I’ve found something that grabs my attention. I want to be both bear and bird. I want a dash of fight, moments of flight, but also stillness, wonder, attention, ease.

Do you have a childhood memory that keeps coming back to you because it speaks to something deep inside you? How has your inner child stayed with you and has she ever seen the world to be a safer place to roam than perhaps she once imagined?