My sinuses convinced me to take a sick day. Though I spent most of the day in bed, I was just too uncomfortable to sleep. Luckily, I had marvelous company. I also had a laptop, which meant I could spend some time diving into inspiration and catching up on a few of my classes.

I did a few of the exercises from Carla Sonheim’s 365 class in my accompanying sketchbook. In one lesson, Carla also mentioned a book by Maira Kalman, which sent me down a rather inspiring rabbit hole.

After quite a journey exploring Maira’s work, I found she had left me with one overwhelmingly powerful question:

“What protects you in this world from sadness and the loss of an ability to do something?”

This is certainly a question worthy of deep and useful contemplation. For Maira the answer is work and love, which sounds about right to me.

I believe that the men in this video might answer, “Dance.”

What would you say?