Making Space for Good Things

This week, I found my way back to the flame.

It had been a while since I had spent a full day behind the torch, so I packed up my glass and tools and made the drive to Guelph. There was something meaningful about the whole journey—not only the distance, but everything it took to arrive there. Setting up my space. Lighting the torch. Choosing the first rod of glass. Feeling that familiar rhythm return to my hands.

I did not need the day to be measured in how many pieces I made. I simply needed to show up and make glass.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about journeys. The roads we travel, the ones we return to, and the quieter journeys that happen within us. Not every journey is measured in miles. Some are measured in time, in small decisions, and in the courage it takes to make room for something different.

There has been a great deal of that happening in my life lately.

I have been making space—not only physical space for a studio and creative work, but mental and emotional space too. I have been looking honestly at what I want my life to feel like and taking small steps toward it. Some of those steps have been exciting. Some have been uncomfortable. Most are still very much in progress.

Making space does not always look dramatic. Sometimes it is clearing a corner of a room. Sometimes it is returning to a practice you love. Sometimes it is saying yes to an opportunity before you feel completely ready. Sometimes it is simply deciding that you are ready to live with a little less fear and a little more hope.

And then, into all that newly opened space, a few lovely things began to arrive.

There is a gallery opportunity that has made me feel seen as an artist at a time when I am finding my way back to that part of myself. There is the possibility of a new order taking shape. And, this week, the first two orders came through the Hello Lovely Shopify shop—both from the United States, which made the whole world feel just a little bigger.

They may look like separate moments, but to me they feel connected—not because making space guarantees that good things will happen, but because something new needs somewhere to land.

Opening ourselves to possibility does not mean that everything is suddenly easy or complete. I am learning that a new chapter can begin while parts of the previous one are still being worked through. We can be healing and hopeful. Uncertain and moving forward. We can still have a long road ahead of us and recognize that the view is beginning to change.

Returning to glass this week felt like returning to myself. The flame was still there. My hands remembered. The artist in me had not disappeared; she had simply been waiting for a little room.

Perhaps that is what this season is asking of me: to keep making room. For the work. For change. For rest. For the life I am trying to build. And for the good things I cannot see coming yet.

I do not know exactly where every part of this journey will lead, but this week reminded me that I do not need to know. I only need to keep taking the next small step, leave the door open, and trust that whatever comes next will have somewhere to land.

xo,

Amber