Some places are hubs.

Certain homes, cafes and gardens become like central pillars in a carousel, where vibrant people’s lives sweep in and out. Similar to the way that the painted horses on a merry-go-round are sometimes in view of each other … and sometimes not  … lives in communities brush shoulders in doorways and others miss each other altogether.

Adam’s coffee house and bistro, Tramezzini, is that sort of place.

It’s a hub rotating with a kaleidoscope of lives.

There’s the AM club – early risers on their way to work, munching a divine breakfast and sipping a coffee to electrify their sleepy souls.

There’s the mid-morning, newspaper page turners, crossword tappers and cake-cud chewers.

There’s the lunch time rush, followed by the post lunch siesta of gentle, billowing custom.

Finally there’s the exotic cocktail of PM diners (who I can’t describe as I’m never there and always at home, tucking children into bed and sipping Rose Tea in the garden as the sun goes down).

Entire communities rotate around this delightful space.

Just like entire communities can rotate around people …

and communities of “feeling” can rotate around the central hub of a year.

2016 has been a carousel for me.

Since January I have found a diverse eclectic bunch of horses and ducks and multi-coloured seasons of energy have merry-go-rounded through the days.

January whisked me into a swirling sense of magic.

If it were a horse on a carousel (or Tramezzini customer), it would have been colourful and bold and full of promises of offering and opportunity.

Then February snorted in; a ferocious dragon of a month.

Old pockets of emotional residue were popping everywhere.

Not just for me … but for everyone I knew.

BTW, that’s supposed to be a stormy lightening cloud behind the dragon ride.

Not something rude and smelly that might pop out of a dragon’s bottom.

(Sometimes pictures go wrong and you don’t realise until it’s 11pm and its too late to change anything).

Next came March.

I immersed myself in creating the Ventnor Botanic Gardens Adult Colouring Book and leaned into the ride.

A desire to trust the flow brushed through my hair and eyelashes and I was filled with a sense of silence.

It was a month of soul quiet.

I didn’t go down to Tramezzini or out into the world much at all.

 (One reason for this was because Reid is at an age where being confined to table is a bit too much for his wild adventurous spirit and he’d rather be sitting on the step of the Arts Club, with the local tramps and colourful crazies that illustrate this town.

As much as I like those people, at that point my soul was calling for silence so I headed out to the country and drew for ten days solid).

During April the Soul Quiet intensified.

Social media started to feel loud.

So did being around lots of people, pushing out lots of stuff or speaking at workshops or events.

Instead, I felt a deep calling to go outside, into woodlands and onto hilltops, immersing myself in the cycles and softness of the nature.

I’ve found myself literally wandering like a wizard in the wilderness.

Collecting sticks of ideas, gathering the moss of peace and occasionally sitting at the edge of the digital city and wondering how I want to show up there and whether it is possible for me to pioneer a new way of being with the accelerating mechanical world (without becoming a hermit!).

Then May!

A new horse.

A new ride.

A new time.

And I was ready for it.

I hit my deadline to complete the VBG Adult Colouring Book, shimmeyed about a bit, leaned across to my Creativity (who seemed to be giving me the cold shoulder) and prodded her on the shoulder.

She put her nose in the air and trotted off on her own Merry-Go-Round trip.

“Humph,” I thought. “That’s weird.”

I decided to leave her alone and clean my house instead.

Pay bills. Sort paper work. That sort of thing.

It was a bit disconcerting … having my Creativity shrug me off.

But then, thankfully the sun came out and June came in and my Creativity thawed enough to let me jump off my own horse and onto her Golden Elephant.

“Hello!” I cried. “It’s ME!”

“F**k you,” she retorted.

Maybe she hadn’t *quite* thawed.

“What? What’s your problem?”

“You tried to make me WORK!” she shouted passionatley over her shouder. “You may think that spending a month drawing a Colouring Book was a good idea, but I don’t DO deadlines and briefs and endless botanic drawings!”

She did some theatrical vomiting gestures over the side of her Golden Elephant.

“Well, its over now!” I yelled back over the looping circus music. “The book is finished, it’ll be out soon … Anyway, we have a whole new project to work on.”

“I’m not doing it,” Creativity shouted back. “I absolutely, categorically, hundred percent refuse to do anything work related.”

“But you’ve GOT to!”

“No. No bloody way. Unless.”

I stared up at the heavens, blew my mouth out into a small volcano and after taking a deep breath. Who would have thought that negotiating with your own Creativity would be as exasperating as trying to negotiate a two year old into eating vegetables?

“Unless what?”

“Unless you take me somewhere Beautiful, Inspiring, Spiritual, Expansive, Wild, Free and Artistically Lickable.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yes, okay. I’ll take you somewhere Artisically Lickable.”

And so that’s what’s going on.

Adam and I are, this week, leaping out of the Tramezzini Carousel and instead riding south to a region of France where magic is born and artists find refuge to fill their creative wells … The House and The Hill.

This is a page from the proprietor’s guest book:

I have no idea what this guest has written here as I do not speak or read French.

But it looks very beautiful.

I also have no idea what 2016 has in store for my June Carousel Experience, but I trust it will be exactly what is required.

What I do know is that my Creativity/my Inner Artist has gotten off of her High Horse/Golden Elephant and has blessed me with her abundance and flow once again. This means I’m hoping – at least – to bring my face to this blog a little more regularly and hear back from you beauties too.

That feels good.

What sort of wild horses have you ridden so far this year?

Does all this sound like madness, or have you sensed the shifts of energy from month to month too?

I believe my little box of commentary has been opened below (another dramatic turn of events!) so let’s hear what’s been rolling in on your 2016 carousel!

Come on!

Tell us all.