Photo of Angel by Matt Fukushima at MoLAA's beautiful sculpture garden

Day 12 of my personal transformation month finds me cleaning and pondering the fascinating way things in life can unfold. I meant to clean this last week, I truly and honestly did. I meant to have quite a leg up on the whole reorganization-of-home project. But instead, in between preparing for my last class, and helping my friend Kerri promote her video-host debut "Welcome to Bike Long Beach", what I felt like doing instead was drawing and painting.

And so I did. The results are that I finished my brother's Father's Day gift ahead of schedule and started on the piece that I shared in my last entry. But that's what's not fascinating. What's fascinating is what I noticed while I was being still and quiet and painting. As usual I was listening to either Pandora, or my own collection of itunes, and suddenly I realized that I could hear and understand lyrics in songs I thought that I knew well that I had never noticed before.

Then, out on a walk yesterday, I saw a beautiful orange flowering plant I'd never ever seen before.

And that got me to thinking about what is going on all about us (and even within us) every minute of every day that we just aren't aware of. That, in turn, led me to pondering that the universe is infinite and we cannot comprehend what infinite truly means.

What in the heck does this have to do with social media, or public relations, or marketing? Well, the obvious answer is that there is always more to learn. We have never completely arrived. The second is that whenever we feel painted into a corner, whenever we feel we've tried everything, there is always space for something new, or something old approached in a new way. There is always a place for polishing, refining, juxtaposing, rearranging, and coming at things with fresh eyes, ears and attitude.

For years the inside joke among those who tried to work with the city of Long Beach on innovative projects was that the city's nickname was the "Can't Do City." This is pretty embarrassing to hear about one's own hometown.

But that's not the end of the story. In the past few years Long Beach has begun to become progressive in some important sustainability issues. While both the LB and LA ports are working on greening themselves, LB leads the way. We were ahead of LA in water conservation and have those in high places calling for the city to become water independent. We are fourth in the nation with community gardens. And of course, you've heard me talk about the bike programs being put into play. None of this happened overnight. And much credit must be given to a progressive minded Mayor Bob Foster and a City Council that wants to bring in the new.

For Long Beach, a city that is young in average population, very ethnically diverse, and hit hard by unemployment and poverty, there should be tremendous pride in the fact that we're pulling ahead of our larger richer neighbors on some of the most important livability issues city's are now being faced with.

So what about you? How could you see yourself and your challenges with fresh eyes and ears? What could you do to give yourself the space for such inspiration and possibilities? Maybe drawing and painting isn't for you, but everyone can benefit from a nice walk can't they?