This week was the start of a new chapter in my life. I recently obtained a visa for the US, a so-called artist’s visa that identifies me now as an alien with extraordinary abilities in writing children’s books. Needless to say I am super excited at this opportunity to spread my children’s books wings.

But it’s also a life-changing leap into uncharted waters and I feel like the little ones in the picture below. Intimidated by the dark around them, you can see them think: are we going in or… I’m that little one at the end of the rudder. I made my choice and went in.

These next years I will be exploring and navigating these, to me, uncharted waters. I’ll be enjoying Californian life, too. Let myself be lifted by that special light that makes my writing soar, the barometric pressure that is so much less here and makes me feel like I can fly, the caressing comfort of fog rolling in, leaving a spray of mist on my skin, and this heart-warming community of Bay Area writers and illustrators that embraced me and took me in as one of their own.

But most of all, I will be working hard to make my dream come true.

And that brings me to a question for you: where are your dreams? Did you put them on hold? Or are you chasing them?

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