Last night, as my birthday present from the saint, I was treated to my restaurant and play of choice.  Both were way more than I expected.   Before seeing "Ruined" at the Intiman, my sister and Joel and I stopped at Toulouse Petit Kitchen and Lounge.  This open air French Quarter-esqu restaurant was first of all, very beautiful and second of all, very impressive with their food and drink selection and quality.

Now I am a girl with an incredibly full social calendar.  I would never complain about this, for all of my interactions are relationships I love and are never obligatory, but even the most talented of introverts (talented at balancing their social/private lives, that is) would be hard-pressed to keep up.  My relationships are deeply meaningful to me.  That being said, wasn't it __________ who said, "There is no relationship as important as the relationship you have with yourself."  (Well darn you google...I can't find it).  Though this may be a bit extreme, I heartily agree with the underlying sentiment.  After the upheaval of the last few months, my relationship with myself (naturally so) has been put on the back burner.  It was nice, for a day, to reconnect and spoil myself.  I hope to do it more often.

I donned a pretty new dress (one my sis bought for me) with a lacy vintage slip peaking out.  I applied a bit too much blush.  I wore my favorite boots and drove off to Seattle blaring Puccini.  I started at Oddfellows Cafe with the newspaper, a baguette with strawberry jam, and an endless cup of coffee.  It was crowded, but I truly must be a city girl, because I just love a noisy cafe.  My thoughts are louder than when in complete country silence and I feel much more secure.  

 I need the world to whirl around me sometimes to know that I am truly sitting still.  

After I finished up the riveting Seattle Times (I also love to reconnect with this city; her restaurant openings, her museum exhibitions, her liberal banter), I broke out my journal.   Despite having a list of correspondence to catch up on, I realized that the one letter I really needed to write was to myself. 

I asked those questions, you know the ones.  "Am I happy with my life continuing as it is?"  I stated the desires of my heart, "I want a new haircut.  I want to be pregnant."  I made a potential schedule of a writer's life and faced the latent fear of why I've never really embraced it before.  Would doing this art thing FOR REAL change how Mrs. Muse visits me?  I am petrified to apply a business lens to her.   I thought about the Hemingway quote that Jess posted in her birthday tribute to me.  He said to himself, "Do not worry.  You have always written before and you will write now.  All you have to do is write one true sentence.  Write the truest sentence you know."  I looked at my marriage...how could I check in with Joel more to feel if he is truly being loved.  Can a relationship be not one's first priority and still be as rich as it used to be?  What is 8 years of marriage...what is normal in the ebb and flow of love?  I've recently been inspired by the blog, Today's Letters wherein one wife writes a sentence per day to her husband about how she loves him.  They reconnect every Tuesday night with a few questions, one of them being, "How did you feel loved this week."  I thought about the composition of my photography and worked on a purpose statement.  These little thoughts were stuck inside of me and it feel beyond cathartic to let them have uninterrupted free reign for a few hours.