Behind the Curtain: Starting with Art

My Dear Friend,

Well, it’s a new year. It still feels strange to say 2026 out loud.

I went down a YouTube rabbit hole recently trying to remember what year "Back to the Future" traveled to.

October 2015. They jumped from 1985 to 2015. Flying cars, Hoverboards and video glasses. We are eleven years past the year that once felt impossibly futuristic. That made me laugh.

Time feels different when your life is measured in scans and infusions.

It’s  been a couple of months since my last update, which means I am several treatments deep.

“How are you doing?”

It’s the question I’m asked the most and the one I hesitate over, every time. There’s the easy answer. “I’m good.” A lie, but a polite one.

Then there’s the safer version. “I’m okay. No appointments today, so that’s good. How are you?”

Those answers work for small talk but small talk belongs to people with busy social calendars. For me, a day of interaction means being asked my name and date of birth half a dozen times. Being asked if I have new symptoms. Then the question that always catches me off guard.

“Have you been out of the country in the last 30 days?”

Girl, what?! Please send me to Portugal or Turkey immediately.

My stomach drops every time they ask because for a brief moment I remember my passport expired a couple of months ago and I still need to renew it.

Then comes the dreaded weight scale. “Please step on.”

If I’m honest, that moment keeps me up the night before. The spiral of eating disorder thoughts and body image issues creeps in and reminds me how much I hate being sick. (need to write about this more because no one talks about it.) That number is somehow more anxiety inducing than accessing my chemo port.

So. Back to the question.

How am I really doing?

Because you’re my friend, I’ll tell you the truth.

I want to say I’m doing better. I recently had a scan that shows I am responding to treatment. That is good news. It is and yet, celebrating still feels complicated. Cancer has taught me that just when things look positive, something else appears. A new diagnosis, side effect or cell mutation that complicates the original problem.

Cancer keeps you on the edge and steals the celebration before it fully lands. My treatment will continue, my doctors have been clear about that.

“You’ll stay on this treatment as long as it’s working.”

I asked, “So forever? “ They said “yes, as long as it keeps working.” That one still hits. I still feel numb when I say it out loud.

The shift

As the reality of each passing week, then month I have come to the unsettling conclusion that I am not waiting for this to be over so I can move on. I don’t want the rest of my life to be defined by two weeks of appointments and one week of recovery. One where there is no travel, no seeing people out of state, no plans being made to look forward to and shop for. I mean, I really want to say, “Why yes, I have been out of the country in the last 30 days.”

But, I especially want the plans I’ve been holding to for over a year.

I understand they may change. They may need to be altered or canceled but I can still have plans. I can still have goals.

I realized something hard, which is for three years I’ve been just surviving.

I don’t want to just survive. I want to LIVE dammit.

Where connection began

 Several years ago, my friend Judy Aldridge (@atlantishome) and I felt a deep pull toward connection. We wanted to gather with other creatives and have real gatherings with real conversations. So when traveling creatives like Carley Summers (@carlaypage) or Liz Kamural (@liz_kamarul) came through Dallas, we had reasons to gather. Food and conversation. A room where online relationships became real ones.

Then isolation hit all of us. The rooms went quiet, but the yearning didn’t disappear.

In early 2024, after one of my many conversations with my friend Natalie Papier, that feeling returned. One of those conversations sparked the beginning of "The Happiness Project", and soon after, the desire to collaborate together. We didn't know how but we promised each other we would put it out there and see what returns to us.

Near the end of 2024, Natalie’s book was about to be released, "Start with the Art". It gave language to what I had been feeling for years. Art first and everything else will follow and connect. She was coming to Dallas for work and I had an idea, “Let’s have a get together, a private book release.” She was thrilled with the idea and Judy said yes before I finished the sentence.

I had a plan that night, I asked everyone to share their story, their pivots, their achievements and their heartbreak. One by one they shared and not only listened but joined in with mutual admiration and ideas. There was a noticeable common thread pulling us together. That night truly felt like lightning in a bottle.

For weeks afterward, messages came in about how that night shifted something in them and they wanted more. I wanted more. Natalie and I immediately started brainstorming and planning and what became was, The Storytellers.

We tested it again in May 2025 with another creative dinner. Same result, Energy, Honesty and Momentum. We had already been planning for months and found a location for our first testing retreat and aimed for an August 2025 launch.

Then stupid cancer stole again.

August 7th PET scan results. Stage 4 breast cancer, metastatic to my liver.

The Storytellers paused/canceled. I was crushed.

Connection is the heart of my energy.

It is for all of us.

It’s why we create.

Choosing control

With a reservation already in place and with my full encouragement, Natalie moved forward and planned a retreat rooted in her book and in our shared love of color and design.

Art still led.

I needed to step back and focus on saving my life, which meant months of chemo and immunotherapy. Knowing a scan at the beginning of this year would decide what came next: Stay on the same treatment if it was working or move on to something new, possibly a clinical trial.

That kind of waiting strips you of all control.

In the meantime, Natalie and I kept talking and months passed. She admitted something honest- She understood the reasons but wished I could be there. Her enthusiasm was waning knowing I wasn't going to be there like we originally planned.

BUT

What if I was ?

So I made a decision before even knowing what my outcome would be, because the honest truth as I was finally admitting was nothing was really going to change. It was more of the same or more of something different. I needed to take back some control.

When Natalie asked if I would join her as a co host last minute, I said YES!!!!!

 February 2026

So on February 19–22 I’ll be joining Natalie Papier at the Start with the Art Retreat, hosted by Angela Chrusciak Bliemh at The River House Arts, in Dahlonega, GA (just outside Atlanta, GA)

If you want to join, there are still a few ways:

Come the full three nights staying at the retreat lodge .

Swing by just for an evening of cocktails and stories Thursday evening.

Join for a full day of Saturday workshops.

If you’re able to come for three nights, one day, or even one evening, we would genuinely love to see you. 

I’m learning that living doesn’t require certainty.

Just a willingness to say yes when something feels true.

 And I want to start with the art.

With love and gratitude,