If I Had A Nickel For Every Time I Forgot This Part...

 I've been knocked down. A lot. Really hard sometimes. I scratch and claw and make some progress, only to be knocked back again. I've spent a considerable amount of time lying in a ditch, nursing my wounds, then struggling to rise again and get back on my way. One of my favorite quotes is:

Fight on, my men," says Sir Andrew Barton,
"I am hurt, but I am not slain;
I'll lay me down and bleed a while,
And then I'll rise and fight again.

I first heard this from Marv Levy, the great Buffalo Bills coach who took his team to four straight Super Bowls, only to have them lose each time. I think of this quote quite often. It makes me feel better to know others have faced similar struggles. I thought of this last night. I have worked hard to get my studio cleaned and organized, to make it into a warm, inviting place where I can forget all the crap that's weighing me down. Last night a big storm blew through and turned the leak in our roof (which I have fought for years with a budget of next to nothing) into a torrent. Water went down the hallway and crept around some of my paintings. The only place I could move them to save them was my studio, which sits cluttered and cold, denying me the least little bit of comfort. I'm knocked down again. I'll get up. Probably not today. Probably not tomorrow. Certainly not until the storm passes. I can hear water dripping as I type this. Even Robert Johnson can't drown it out. (Drown... see what I did there?) I get knocked down and get back up, then get knocked down and get back up, until I just can't get up again.

"Zen of Serenity"