"Spike" is ready for the party! This piece started as a shout out to my highly sensitive peeps - those of us who navigate the world with our hearts a bit closer to the surface. Deeply feeling, we are easily overwhelmed by stimuli - both good and bad. On our best days, people describe us as highly empathetic and under stress, we’re labeled as standoffish or prickly. Both are probably fair assessments, depending on your view. In its early stages, there was no balloon in this piece - when it showed up, I laughed out loud. The tension between the edge of the balloon and the tip of the spike feels like the tightrope of optimistic courage we walk as we show our true selves, and also it totally cracks me up.