Truth is, I haven't been right since I watched Any Human Heart.
I'm not sure I should tell you about it or not, because I don't know how you would react to it. I know *I* can tolerate some of the most depressing narrative known to man, and I went to sleep that night sobbing into my pillow. This is it. This is all we get. We're going to ruin so many things. We're not going to finish some of the things that were, in hindsight, most important. OR, what we thought wasn't important turned out to be the real story. And sometimes the real story changes when you look at it in a different light, and it hurts.
Truth is, I wish I would have had the balls to throw away all my stuff and start over.
Versus going through it. I'm still going through it. My closet, my art studio, my office are just piles of unrealized expectations. I enjoy being in the studio, when I force myself to sit down, but I have to get there - get through there - first in order to do that. The work space is five feet square for all the crap I've got piled up. To get through the crap I've got to touch it and look at it and think about it, and I don't want to do that.I almost never do it. In spite of my New Year's Resolution to go in there every day.
Truth is, I'm not sure I want to blog anymore.
The thought entered my mind this week and it settled there, happily. I feel more obligation to you than motivation to do it. I feel like you miss the old blog, but I don't see the world quite that way anymore, and that's o.k. (with me.) I think the old blog was about trying to find and share the beauty that I could own in that world. That world is gone, as if I dipped my hand in a bucket of water - there were ripples when I pulled my hand out but, eventually, it settled as if I was never there. I know that's not entirely true, but things continue without me. The lake partially freezes and the creek thaws. The orange blossoms come and go. Cherries. And I'm not there. And it's fine, actually.
Bonus shot of M and J Trim:
But I actually prefer Pacific Trimming for price and selection:
Oh, if you were only here. I stole the family room (not huge, but longer and wider than five feet) when we built the gathering room on the end of the house. I put a nice-sized ancient badly refinished dining room table in there and G put up two intense lights so they'd shine down on it. I pirated the kids' built in desks (left from the years I educated them at home) and filled the drawers of three and all my short cabinets with yarn and wire and glass and tools and yarn and fabric and bells and clay and wood and paper - odd bowls, clip art, books - and have done nothing since December except stare into this screen. THIS VERY SCREEN. The upstairs small guest room (once Ginna's) has one wall full of cabinets - half filled with studio stuff (music) and half with quilting fabric. Oh, and games. There are games up there.
It all feels like a reproach. A responsibility to DO something, fashion things that aren't even useful out of air. Because i like doing it. How can liking to do something translate into duty?
I didn't really know the old blog. I found it because of the dogs. And I loved the dogs. But as a crafter facing retirement couldn't afford to buy a dog. But I liked you so much, I didn't want to steal the idea. Besides, I didn't know how. So instead, I picked up an old project: learning about three D sewing. So instead of buying a dog, I bought patterns - vintage and not - some on etsy. Haven't done more than look at them fondly.
So though I did not know the old blog, what I've seen of it and you? Your assessment seems measured and reasonable. Blogging can be your own room. And since the people who bother you in life, wouldn't bother to read you on line (unless they are very sick individuals with mal-intent), you actually can strike a certain odd privacy; only like-hearted folk tend to be repeat readers.
For me, blogging - and the essays I used to write out and send to my mailing list - did that for decades, actually - is all about connection. Like a constant stream of Christmas cards. I suppose the friendship you and I have struck could vanish like the hand-space in the water without doing damage to either of our lives, but it would still be a loss to me. So I send little pieces of myself out to people who I actually believe care about me, hoping to entertain, or give some little mental/spiritual thought gift of a laugh or horror or whatever. Something of myself. To seal the deal and nurture it. But I'd be compelled to write my ideas out and my events anyway - more fun to tell the stories out loud than stick them in a journal nobody will ever read. And I can add pictures - YAY!
So - conclusion: your studio stuff is a luxury, a palette, a retreat - but only for the day when you would delight to go in and mess with it. It belongs to you, not you to it. It's a RESOURCE. Resources are GOOD. If I want to work with wood, all I have to do is pick it up - not plan and purchase and all the things that tend to use up the energy before you actually do anything with it. And the space is yours - it's not like some restaurant table they want you to vacate if you're not going to buy dessert.
Honey - your life is in your hand. Throw it up in the air and see what it looks like with the light shining through it. You don't owe anybody anything. Except yourself. You owe yourself. Because you are the kind of person who deserves to dance. So I'm not doing any depressing watching - life is a crap shoot with a God behind the possibilities. So why not dance? A lot of room for dancing in the light. And you can make it up as you go along, as long as you respect the laws of physics.
Now, I want to GO TO THOSE STORES. I need camel-wear. Not for me. For the dang camels.
Posted by: Kristen | May 26, 2012 at 10:08 AM
Oh, Kristen! That is a *post*! You sound so much like Heidi sometimes. It is such a good feeling to create, but I also have a studio that I never enter. I struggle to figure out why, and I suspect it's because I am afraid that I suck. I usually create well when Heidi is there to be my muse - she always has great ideas and a different point of view - but I struggle to get there on my own. Meant to do it today. And yesterday. And the day before. Can't seem to. So it waits and I feel guilty for not getting in there. You know how it is, I see.
Posted by: teent | May 26, 2012 at 03:35 PM
No sorrow without joy. No joy without sorrow.
Posted by: The Trad | May 27, 2012 at 07:31 AM
I said, here, that I'd never think of not blogging - or maybe something like it - http://twokitties.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/08/embroidered-felt-baby-booties-deep-thoughts-.html
Maybe I can just make the blog whatever I want it to be. There's so much past in present, it's hard not to refer to the old one. You know?
I'm going in the studio today to throw more sh** out.
Posted by: Heidi | May 27, 2012 at 07:57 AM