Growth Doesn’t Have To Be Painful

Hey everyone! It’s been quite a while since I’ve made an entry on my page. February 2, 2023, to be exact. The name of my last post, “How I Can Do This,” was all about how I survived rebuilding my little house in Periwinkle Park after Hurricane Ian.

Now, late September 2026, I’m writing this article to share more of my life lessons and how I can do this—again.

This time, it’s not about rebuilding after another H. I rarely mutter that word and tend to walk away when anyone is talking about it. Yeah, I have PTSD from that and continue to hold my breath during the months of September and October. But rather than dwelling on the negative, I’ll say one thing about it, then move on.

As horrible as it was, I really can’t believe how much I grew from it. At my age, I sometimes wonder and say out loud to myself, “How much more f’ing growing must I do?”

But, of course, we all know the answer to that—don’t we?

So that’s what I’m writing about today. Growth…and a few more things.

Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time, on a small island in SWFL, a woman needed a date for a thing called “the cotillion.”

The cotillion is a fancy dinner party for members to gather, eat, talk, drink and dance. That’s it. The only purpose of the membership is fun. So naturally, I bought in.

It really didn’t occur to me that I’d be THE ONLY SINGLE person there.

So I asked a guy I had met at a Van Halen tribute concert—yes, that’s what I said—to go with me. The caveat of my invite was: “Wear a suit and dance with me.”

Simple.

After a bit of self-deliberation on his part and two consecutive nights of hanging out, he agreed.

We live together with his cat now.

YES, I said a cat. Don’t laugh.

The 2026 season was ending, my friends began heading elsewhere, and they asked me what in the world I was going to do all summer in the Florida heat.

I love my Florida friends, but realized there’s a side of me they simply didn’t know. The side my lifers know.

The side that hibernates. Creates. Cooks. Sleeps.

The side that recovers from the highly social, ever-entertaining “season.”

Many folks do the same thing. But my friends didn’t know I need it too.

This summer, rather than fleeing north, I opted to stay here with John and my newly acquired cat, Piper. John works a lot. So most days, I—well—Piper and I hung out.

Blinds down to keep the house as cool as possible, an ever-losing battle.

I was in a cave.

I slept some.

Mostly I was creating.

Creating.

Creating.

Art

My house is small. There’s really no place for a large easel. Did I mention I’m a little messy?

During season, when people are popping in regularly and I’m throwing dinner parties, I try to keep this little haven organized and ready for guests.

However, just for the summer, I allowed myself to open my studio.

At. The. Kitchen. Table.

In. A. House. With. An. Open. Floor. Plan.

At any given time, I had anywhere from 2–10 canvases going. Countertop, easel, table. Anywhere I could find.

I don’t like to wait for paint to dry. It’s really that simple.

I’m not very good.

I have to redo things a million times, and sometimes the whole painting looked great except for one little part I just couldn’t figure out, so I’d scrap the whole thing.

I frequently sent John pictures of my daily progress. He developed his own collage:

“The Island of Misfit Painting Subjects.”

I did manage to complete a few that I’m sorta proud of, and I actually sold one on Facebook Marketplace. I met the couple at a grocery store, handed over the painting, grabbed the cash, and sped away before they could change their minds.

My growth as a painter is going incredibly slowly. I wish I could say that I had some kind of major breakthrough, but I don’t think I did.

Music

The music didn’t start this summer.

When I returned in October 2025, I started writing my first song for the second annual Periwinkle Park dance video. (You can find these and a lot of other video creations on my YouTube channel.)

I had used Coldplay’s “Adventure of a Lifetime” for my first dance video and ran into some copyright issues. So, I decided for the second one, I’d write my own song.

This is how it began, and how I learned about the SUNO music app and how so many pieces began falling into place.

At first, the songwriting was silly. I’d write little ditties about family, for birthdays, etc.

But shortly after I met John, songwriting became my journal.

As I wrote more and played around with SUNO, I got better. Some days, he’d leave for work having just uttered a phrase, and I’d climb back into bed and write for hours, coffee cup in hand, ignoring my friends’ texts about walking.

I just couldn’t stop once I got started.

I was obsessed.

Some days, I was frantic because I couldn’t get SUNO to do what I wanted. Some days, the lyrics weren’t right. Some days, the composition sucked.

But mostly, by the end of a session, I was pretty happy with my results.

I shared my songs with a few close friends and my kids.

My friends listened.

My kids refused.

No kidding.

This gave me pause.

After all, at this point in my life, my main goal—and I’m not kidding about this—is to impress my kids.

I’m SO impressed with them, and I want to leave something for them (that money can’t buy). I want them to look back on my life and smile about all of these creative junkets.

So, when they weren’t very excited about the whole AI thing, I took a pause.

Certainly, me sitting in my house writing music for fun was not a bad thing.

But honestly, I didn’t want to stop there. I wanted to share it with a larger audience. I wanted to see if others might like it.

So, I called a friend of my son whose opinion and thoughts about technology, AI and music really matter to me. He’s not just brilliant with this stuff, but he’s incredibly thoughtful.

We had a good chat.

Ultimately, I think we agree on two major things.

First, AI is a really great tool, and simply ignoring it is not necessarily the way to go.

Second, as long as I’m honest about how I’m using it—or that I’m using it at all—makes it okay.

That’s how I originally reconciled using AI as a part of my creative songwriting process.

My kids still didn’t listen, though, and that was a big influence in my decision-making about recording my songs with a live vocalist in a studio.

With that said, I think it’s important to tell you what my process has been—to be transparent.

I’m writing the lyrics.

I run them through AI, make changes, tell AI it’s a stupid line and we need to change it.

Then, when I’m pretty happy with the lyrics, I import them into SUNO.

SUNO has a box where I can create style prompts. This is where I can type things like “solo female vocal” or “add saxophone and violin.”

Then I generate a song.

It doesn’t happen lickety-split.

Sure, a song will pop up, but it can take hours and hours of re-prompting and rewriting lyrics to get something worth listening to.

After I had written quite a few songs and was still hoping my sons would listen, I decided to bring in a local singer and record the songs at a recording studio.

Recording is not inexpensive, so I decided I’d use a live vocalist but keep the SUNO instrumental.

To date, I have recorded three finished songs with Marvilla Marzan, a highly talented local performer (and all-around wonderful person), and one song with John J. Healy (that guy who lives with me), who has a lot in common with Marvilla—an amazing voice and one of the kindest humans I’m lucky enough to spend time with.

Here is the link to my music on Spotify:

I have also released three songs with my voice “sampled.”

This means I sang into my phone, recorded it and uploaded it to SUNO.

Some of the results are hysterical, but a few have worked out.

(I highly recommend doing this at a party with friends. You will be laughing all night.)

As the summer winds down, I continue to write. I’m fully intending to write for live vocal performances and am hoping to produce a full-blown song(s) with all instruments.

Fingers crossed that I can pull it off.

Unlike painting, I feel like I’ve grown by leaps and bounds in this process.

Writing lyrics is both therapeutic and a wonderful new avenue for my general love of writing. And almost by default, I’m learning a lot about music, which is very cool. Oh, and my kids are listening. I’m not really sure if they’re thrilled but they are listening 🙂

Logos

Quick résumé history.

Before teaching philosophy, I owned a graphic design biz for 10 years. Since retiring, I decided to brush up on the Adobe Creative Suite.

There’s more to this story later.

Sometime in the middle of the summer, I received a call from my friend Marisa Muench, whose family owns the property, Periwinkle Park, where I live.

She decided to open a merchandise store in the Park and wanted a little advice about design.

One thing led to another, and I ended up designing most of the logos and illustrations for the store, with one very important exception—and my motivation for the whole thing.

Early in our relationship, I discovered John not only has a fantastic voice, but he’s also an incredibly talented artist.

I asked Marisa if John could do the illustration for the Periwinkle Park “Official” beach towel. I wanted to see him in action.

Marisa, also a long-time friend of John’s, was thrilled with this idea.

The towel is gorgeous, John was meticulous in his work, and I’m pretty sure she’s going to sell out.

The towel is one of many products we designed over the summer.

It was very time-consuming but a whole lot of fun!

I’m now really confident in my re-learning of the Adobe Suite and very excited about my next project using that.

Unfortunately, that one’s a secret project, and you’ll just have to wait to hear about it.

Stay tuned.

I’m really, really, really excited about it.

AI

I wrote a silly song called “Me, Myself and (A)I.”

I don’t want to spend too much time on this topic except to say that, throughout the summer, it has been a great tool to help me execute many, many creative endeavors.

I’m grateful for it.

And, I guess, that’s that.

~~~

So, that’s how I survived the summer season of 2026.

My growth this summer was not about pain or struggle.

It was about pure joy.

The joy of creating.

The joy of hibernating with a really great guy, a sweet cat and a handful of friends and family.

I love that growth doesn’t always have to be painful.

So, my friends, I’m looking forward to all of my buddies returning to the Park.

I’m still holding my breath as we finish H season.

I almost forgot, I have three writing projects going and made oodles of animated videos (found on YouTube channel). Yeah, I was busy.

Peace, Love, Kindness…and Laughter

Trish