Sometimes, the magnitude of what we lost in the house fire is too big for my mind to grasp. But my body remembers. It lives in my muscle memory, my nerve endings, my pores. Every so often, it rises as a sudden rush of anxiety or panic—appearing without warning, but never without origin. I often chalk it up to stress, lack of sleep, or nutritional gaps, but deep down, I know exactly where it comes from. So I take supplements, go to bed earlier, move my body, find tools to cope, but they’re all temporary buffers against a truth I keep gently pressing out of view. One day, I’ll have to face it fully. Just not all at once. For now, I’m learning to hold each piece, one at a time. It’s hard to place material things on the scale of true loss. But when objects hold memory, sentiment, and beauty, when they carry the heartbeat of the people who made them, they become something more than “things.” For my husband @debrisblanc and me, the art we’d gathered over the years—paintings, sculptures, mixed media works from friends, from his college days, from my son’s hands—was sacred. Priceless.  There’s an energy exchange that happens when you bring an artist’s work into your home. It alters the room’s frequency. It’s not simply décor but a form of connection. It lives and breathes in the space, and that energy evolves, gathering sentiment the longer it lives with you. Take this iconic @hollyaddi painting, gifted to us by the artist through @uprisenyc when we were in our Silver Lake apartment. It hung in our living room for years, becoming a visual heartbeat of home. When we moved to Altadena, she came with us, carrying her history into a new space—as seen above! When the Uprise Art team reached out recently and asked me to curate pieces for their holiday gift guide, it felt like a meaningful full-circle moment. A chance to honor the painters, photographers, sculptors, and makers whose work has shaped my own world. I’m sharing the link in stories if you’d like to explore the collection. I’ll end with the wisdom of Frida Kahlo: “I paint flowers so they will not die.” A reminder that while our home will be rebuilt—repainted into being—the spirit of what we lost lives on.