Thoughts After I Put Up a Flare

Since "putting up a flare" for support one day ago and asking my community to buy my prints, I've gotten so many incredible gifts - kind words from friends, print orders from people that knew me as a teenager, orders from people I've played fiddle/blues/Brasilian music with in the middle of the night, offers for loans and shared stories of when money was uncertain and friendship saved the day. And it is a gift to remember that in all my 8 years/96 months of working for myself in various capacities, I can only count a very few other times when I was between a money rock and a hard place.

Most of all I'm grateful for people like Marguerite Chandler and Jeremy Blanchard and Shilpa Jain who taught me when what is in front of me seems just too impossible to survive, I can reach out to those around me. I've been particularly influenced this year by the work of Brené Brown, and her treatise that the extent to which I am willing to be vulnerable is the extent to which I can experience connection and joy. Somehow the most beautiful gift is hearing from people I care about that in sharing my own story, they are inspired to invite and accept support to bring a bit more ease into their own lives.

If you haven't yet gotten a print, I would still love to send you one!

Asking for support

from Ilha de Paqueta, in Rio de Janeiro

Today I write to ask for support from my community. After a few compounded unexpected financial losses in the past week, I am unable to meet my financial needs for October 1st, and am vulnerably and formally inviting you to support me by buying watercolor prints from my website, here.

I wasn’t planning on ending the month this way: In spite of it being a sparse summer season of work, I had been hired early in the month for a group drawing job, and had two clients that were signing off on large projects. But in the last week, each of these projects has unexpectedly fallen through, with my normal cancellation policy unable to be followed. I then had $200 stolen from my wallet, and visit to urgent care with an injured (but thankfully unbroken!) toe that was only partially covered by my insurance. 

I can see how even people around me to ask this of is one of the many things I can be grateful for. And I have so much beyond that: I’m grateful for how affordable (and beautiful!) my home and studio spaces are.  I’ve enjoyed how my toe has slowed me back to walking the pace of a Brasilian, how I’m taking time to eat with my housemates and see more fully the world around me. A vast and kind human being has come into my life, Evan, and I feel so blessed that even if just for a few weeks, I have been gifted the spaciousness, joy and vulnerability of a great love.  I have the creative, humor and deep listening filled friendships and accountability partnerships with my studiomate Ian and soul friend, Mariam. I have the wisdom and support of my coaching community to look at what I need to do next. I have received a short term loan from my housemate and fellow entrepreneur, Dan. 

And, even more fundamentally, I am grateful to have within me thefaithfilled-practice of many, many years of artistry to create such drawings to share - I am most proud of this set of drawings, as anything I have ever made. I am grateful for the privilege to be called to contribute the work of my hands and voice to create beauty to a world that desperately needs it.

Thank you for reading this, for seeing what you see in me, and being a part of my path to thrive as an entrepren-artist, a community member, and a creator of beauty. 

You can buy prints, here: http://www.melanieidachopko.com/objects/brasil-waterpost-prints

Love, 

Melanie

Oh Geesh, Reality

I'm laughing today at what is called in the coaching world, physical reality: I set a goal to finish a project, and then reality happens, with all its bizarre unexpected-ness. For a couple months I've been working on a set of click track demos of my music, and set the evening of September 2nd as my date to turn them in to Rachel, my pre-production producer. 

And as it stands, today, on my last work day for the tracks, I have about half my usual voice due to some weird laryngitis thing that's lingered over the past few weeks. My little media card carrying two piano tracks has disappeared, and I made had a plan to spend a couple extra hours re-doing them. No problem, except this week someone has decided to pressure wash the building next door. The building that's located outside the window of my upright piano. Imagine 10 washing machines running at once: that's the background sound today. 

So much of my music education process has been about acceptance, beginner's mind, gentleness, commitment without tightness. It's so much easier for me to be in full on General mode, charging forward towards a concrete goal. So I'm laughing at the nice spiritual lesson that a day or two of change doesn't really mean much.