I was recently reminded of one of my favorite things Maya Angelou said: 

“A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.”

I know that we are all spending so much of this year trying to look for answers and make sense of the future. We are scared, we are confused, and we want so badly to control this currently uncontrollable virus that is keeping us in isolation. 

I have spent many months in quarantine struggling creatively. After I finished writing Heart Talk: The Journal and my children’s book, What The Road Said, I was completely burnt out. 

Between a new baby, the overall stress of Covid-19 and work fatigue, I truly felt like I didn’t know when I would write anything new again (BTW, if I am being totally honest right now, this is also the reason the newsletters slowed. I just…had no words). 

As I took some time to find my new self-care routine and try my best to pour some energy back into myself, I started to miss writing and painting, but the words still just weren’t there. 

After taking a break from writing for a couple months, I definitely didn’t feel the same fatigue…so what was it? What was blocking me creatively?

And then, I saw these words from Dr. Angelou and thought to myself, oh shit. 

I, like so many of us, had been obsessed with grasping for answers to all of the questions lurking around us this year. I find myself hypothesizing when and how cities will reopen, what businesses will look like in 2021, what travel will be like, how the economy will do, what will happen in the elections, how I will keep the seniors in my family safe and less lonely, the list goes on and on. 

I’d forgotten that creativity, poetry, art, joy, laughter, dancing, and singing (even when you are tone deaf like me) are the songs of our lives. 

We can’t make everything about trying to find answers. 

We can’t live every moment in a state that is constantly seeking or trying to control. 

Sometimes, some days, we just gotta sing our songs. Because it's fun. Because it feels good. Because we can’t keep it in any longer. 

I love you,
 

Cleo

P.S. I am writing again. I have no idea what I am writing about or what I am writing for or what I will do with any of this writing and it feels...amazing. 

P.P.S Heart Talk: The Journal was officially born into the world today!! Thank you so much to all of you who have already supported this book in such and incredible way and if you are looking for a copy, check with your local bookshop or online at Bookshop, Barnes &  Noble, Books A Million, or Amazon.