Scattered toward every wind …

i can explain … i think all i need is one word, actually …

life.

that sums up the extent of my absence, and thus, my lack of involvement here.

apologies all around.

i miss the hot, lazy summer days as a child … the day would pass slowly into evening, lilting along with an easy current, mimicking the soft, warm breeze  july in oklahoma. i look back now and imagine myself as an oft-seen tumbleweed … blowing along the dusty earth, carried toward every wind with nary a care … as a child, the worries of being caught in the wind and scattered about were groundless … obligations were few, fun was abundant. as years have passed since i enjoyed carefree days of warmth and joy, many things have changed. obligations are many … there are important, life-altering decisions to be made … fun can still be abundant, though the time one has to have such fun, has been greatly diminished. life is a struggle … ever-constant … push/pull, light/dark, joy/pain, happiness/sorrow, life/death … but at the center of this struggle is where beauty is most defined … i hope to find myself centered more often than not in this struggle in the coming days, as i finalize plans to uproot myself from my home of more than 18 years … leaving friends, family, and most things familiar and comfortable to me. there is still much work to be done, and some things still need to fall into place, but i am trying to take in these scary and exciting days with the mindset of the child i once was … being able to enjoy the ride, more than stress about it … being able to see the beauty that is at the heart of struggle.

i was informed last week that my position at work is being cut at the end of the month. reading this, many of you (all two or three of you) would normally assume that this is an awful thing, though, not at all surprising, given all of the bad news fed to us about the economy and lessthanstellar job market. i can tell you that this news reached my ears and was met with excitement. i have felt pretty trapped at this job … dependant upon it for income, yet being completely bored with and uninspired by it. unfortunately, with many financial obligations, the money out-dueled my boredom and dreams, and so i kept on in it. every day was the same … nothing new … exciting things were coming up over the horizon, but looked dim, like the sunrise on a cloudy day … the job was the cloud-cover, teasing me … i could see the faint hints of light, but it was obstructed just enough to keep me discouraged. now that the clouds have cleared, my dreams are once again coming into focus. these are exciting times, indeed.

and to add to the excitement …

RELEVANT MAG: Let’s talk about the future for a moment. I hear you’re working on a project with Sam Beam. That sounds like a match made in heaven. Can you tell us any more about what’s to come?

ROSIE THOMAS: Sam and I are great friends. He sang at my wedding and is just such a sweet man who has his heart in the right place. I like him a lot and I like his work. For years he’s been pushing me to do a record with him and I finally took him up on it. We’re starting in February. I’m not really sure where it will go, but we have high hopes for it. It will be great just to be around him. He keeps making jokes saying, “Rosie, I really want you to just belt something out. I want to hear some real R&B from you.” It’s funny. … I didn’t set out to only do records with friends. But this stuff just keeps coming up and it’s too fun. I can’t turn it down. It’s where I’m supposed to be right now.

now that she’s been married off, maybe rosie will keep the joking about being pregnant to a minimum for this collaboration.

cheers.