After the Jabberwock's Winter: An Update

Finding my way back Beyond the Looking Glass-

A reality, survived.

There are seasons when words and color come easily, and seasons when they feel heavier to lift. The past few months have been the latter.

I’ve been quieter than usual—not because I disappeared, but because reality asked me to slow down in ways even the White Queen couldn’t have anticipated. This winter carried a heaviness of the heart for me, shaped by grief, medical realities, seasonal depression, and the layered weight of the world as it currently stands. It wasn’t one thing. It was many, arriving all at once and staying longer than expected.

In October, I went to the hospital in Fayetteville for what I thought would be a short visit. It wasn’t. That moment marked the true beginning of what I now think of as the Jabberwock’s winter. After more tests, more pain, and more waiting than anticipated, I left and decided to go to Rex in Raleigh. Thank the Goddess I did—because within four hours of being there, I was diagnosed, scheduled to have my gallbladder removed, and informed that until surgery, the pain would likely persist on and off, accompanied by nausea. Surgery was scheduled for December 18. Between October and then, I did my best to keep moving forward—trying to put together a workshop and take commissions—but it was incredibly difficult to work consistently while navigating pain, appointments, and uncertainty.

Healing, as it turns out, is not friends with time the way I am, and insists on its own timetable.

The holidays arrived heavier than I expected. Grief tied to my parents’ passing over the last couple of years collided with recovery, and the emotional weight of that season settled in deep. For a while, I felt hollow—like I was operating in survival mode rather than living my life. I tried to keep up where I could, but working simply wasn’t possible in the ways I’m used to, and that absence only compounded the grief instead of easing it.

At the same time, the broader state of the world made joy and art harder to access internally. When things feel uncertain, loud, or frightening on a global scale, creativity can feel both more necessary and more elusive. I found myself holding two truths at once: that creating light felt harder than usual—and that it mattered more now than ever before in my lifetime.

More days than not, though, I’m feeling my energy begin to return. Sleep is still a struggle, and some days wobble more than others, but hope has been quietly making its way back in. I’m planning again, and that feels new—like stepping up onto the mantle and back through the looking glass, discovering that reality, though changed, has held.

This work still matters deeply to me. Not just as a livelihood or a creative outlet, but as a way of offering softness, color, whimsy, comfort, and moments of relief to anyone who might need them right now. In a heavy world, small bright things are not frivolous—they are necessary. We fight, we mourn, and we keep dancing anyway, because joy itself is something worth defending. Even when joy has been harder for me to reach personally, the importance of making space for it for others has only grown clearer.

With that in mind, I’m taking a hopeful step forward.

If the weather cooperates, my first day back working will be February 7, at The Little Blue Bakehouse in Raleigh. It’s a weather-willing return, and a gentle one—an intentional re-entry rather than a full sprint back to “normal.”

Thank you for your curiosity and kindness while I have been quietly processing.

Conversation is welcome—comments, messages, or an in-person hello if our paths cross. I’m looking forward to reconnecting, one looking-glass step at a time.

Sweetness Returns