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A couple of days ago, I had the pleasure of attending an artist’s talk at 92NY, just a short walk from my new home in New York. It feels like such an honor to have access to world-class cultural events so easily and conveniently. The hardest part, I’m quickly learning, is saying no—there’s only so much time in a day. Especially now, as I prepare for a show in April, with an enormous amount of work ahead of me.

Still, I’m deeply grateful that I braved the cold and attended. Although I experienced turbulent emotions during the talk itself, with a few days of distance I find myself even more thankful that I was there.

As Rachel Eliza Griffiths spoke, I noticed an unexpected feeling rising in me: envy. Not of her success alone, but of her life as an artist. She is both a writer and a visual artist—highly accomplished in each medium. While she is currently promoting her new novel, The Flower Bearers, she also has an exhibition of her striking fine art photography on view. Her creative life feels expansive, integrated, and fully lived.

Although the book centers on her grief, I found myself focusing less on the work and more on the life behind it. She shared that she lost a dear friend unexpectedly on the day of her wedding—a tragedy that is almost impossible to comprehend. Yet my mind wandered elsewhere, to the intimacy of their bond. She described this woman as her “chosen sister,” someone who shared her creative gifts in a non-competitive, deeply supportive way. My own sister and I barely speak, and I haven’t had a best friend in decades. That realization landed with quiet force.

Griffiths also spoke about the artistic community she experienced while attending Sarah Lawrence College in New York. As I listened, resentment surfaced—grief for the life I never lived. Family pressure and my own unhealed wounds pushed me onto a different path, one that never felt entirely chosen. I couldn’t help but wonder how far along I might be as an artist had I been able to live the life I truly wanted.

As Griffiths shared her grief over losses inflicted suddenly and externally, I felt my own grief rising—grief born of different circumstances. Hers came through tragedy. Mine emerged from poor choices and the long, necessary work of healing so I could learn to choose differently now.

This kind of grief is unfamiliar to me. I don’t often feel envy toward others. That’s precisely why the intensity of this feeling caught my attention. It demanded to be understood.

Years ago, while reading The Artist’s Way, I learned that envy is a signal—it is information. We feel envy not because we are incapable, but because we are capable. Our souls recognize something familiar yet unrealized, and we ache to close the gap.

Lately, as I’ve been working toward my upcoming April exhibition, Triune, I’ve been thinking a great deal about this idea—about the convergence of who we were, who we imagined we might be, and who we are becoming. The work has been asking me to hold these truths at once: grief and possibility, regret and devotion, rest and resolve.

I envy Rachel Eliza Griffiths because I recognize myself in her. I, too, am a writer and a visual artist. I, too, am married to someone with creative aspirations. In her, I glimpsed the woman I could have been. And, more importantly, I am beginning to see the woman I still can be.

That pain now fuels me. It pushes me to keep working, to keep living my dharma. In many ways, the paintings I am creating for Triune are born from this exact tension—the quiet insistence to remain present with what is, while continuing to move toward what is possible.

While I have not yet achieved the recognition or visibility she has, her sudden presence in my life—through this talk—felt like a gentle alignment, a reminder to trust the slow, deliberate unfolding of my own path.

For that, I am deeply grateful.

Please follow along as I continue this journey—and share your own with me.

With love,
Raven