For all of my bossiness, I'm realizing that I rather like the fact that Damon--my musical husband--no longer asks about my availability to work on our new stuff. When he calls, it's always with specific instructions. This is what's happening. This is when and where you need to be with me. This is what I want you to do. And we have yet to encounter a conflict. He sets the wheels in motion, and I'm eager to accommodate. I lyricize. I sing. I create. On cue.

For another artistic pairing, this might be stifling. Misguided, even. But I've known Dizzy more than 20 years now. He is the Ashford to my Simpson, the Ozzie tinkling ivories to my Rubyish vocals. And no, we are not...nor ever have been...a couple, since many of you keep asking. Works better this way. Together, loving each other only as friends and co-creators, we get shit done. Beautiful, magical shit sometimes. We're a co-ed Jam & Lewis, minus the superstardom.

2009 is about reinvention. I have cut off, cut loose, redesigned and revised so much of myself and my plan in 2008. This year is about action. Being. Doing. Kineticism. Regrowth. Replacing what was lost or discarded with a more suitable iteration.

I meditate and make lists, taking considerable pleasure in watching the various tasks get scratched out and completed. And then a new list begins. I've considered keeping the pages in a notebook, so that by year's end I could reflect on all of the many bits and pieces of fulfillment that have led to whatever new whole is in my future. But that would disturb the Feng Shui up in here. I'm recommitted to removing clutter this year, too. That which is unslightly and inutil is outta here. The atoms must vibrate at a higher rate now.

The waves keep crashing on the shoreline, but the tide hasn't pulled me either way yet. I'm still surfing just beyond the undertow, enjoying the fluid motion and wondering exactly where the current is headed.