Toronto is grey. Small sharp sleet is falling from the sky after yesterday's mop wet rain.
I have now used up all the vegetables (see salad above) & will venture forth to shop a little later.
This was a week of a few reckonings. The business end. The frightening, gobsmacking, overwhelming business end, the tedium side, the tortured limit, the squeamish factor, the bitter edge...(that otto do it) of the Art Business.  I have received my directions.

What an artist must do (otherwise known as what an artist must spend, after acceptance & paid booth rental) to be in wonderful juried Toronto Art Project: must get/organize/apply-for/fax-in/email-request/apply-online-for:
Electricity for booth,
Lighting for booth,
Insurance; stuff & personal liability,
Debit/credit card machine, along with obligatory HST number (though I am a registered business)
Internet connection for booth (scratch that - extortionist fees)
Truck to move in & out,
Helpers (Santa, you there?)

kachingkaching.
However. I am grateful. I am healthy. I am strong. I am mindful of my good fortune. I can do this.

I asked a friend the other day, out of the blue, if there was a moment in his life of life-altering decision making, a swirling epiphany on which he experienced change, & how so?
He thought for a while (Dvorsky your damn questions!) and answered something that I had so truly not foreseen, because it was such a brilliant answer that today I still chew on it, mulling it over & examining his wisdom. The point of the exercise to be clear was not what transpired to have you make a life-course decision but, what was the change or decision that came about?

He answered: " I took responsibility for my life."

I was amazed. What had I expected? Probably something more like, to read science magazines, to spend more time with my kids, to eat less sugar, to practice a musical instrument. Not this profound answer full of optimism & insight. Quasi mantra-esque, it evoked something in me, a whole head-spinning category of being in the world.

I make decisions to eat raw vegetables, to pull out my yoga matt, to meditate, to invite a friend over, to go for a jog, to buy ‘green’; those are all taking responsibility too of course. But in a much broader sense, this talks of something entirely different. Who do I want to be in the world?

Responsible.