I'm not sure there is anything more eerie than being in an empty home on a nice day scrubbing in silence. Meditation is found in many ways, but manual labor seems the most instant for me now. I'm letting go of this house in the country. The yard has grown up and daisies speckle the field.

It is a morning for water skiing, and following that shiny black lab that wanders about on the beach all by itself, like it were just a step behind a ghost owner, or it had a mind of it's own that it couldn't make up, and it was freed to go about and snoop in seaweed filled corners and claw at the pebbles.

The beach life is much different. To me it truly feels like home. I love the privacy of space and the green of pasture; but my heart stops truly for the sea and shore. The roses were watered and they have bloomed with all this change, and I take that steadily to heart.

I'm still working on closing this chapter before I start another. It has worn me down: the cleaning, the closing up, the thinking about the "lasts". The last meal and the last . . .

I'm thankful for this time. For the sore muscles and the fatigue, and the feeling of satisfaction when a room is done and ready for someone else. I exist day to day now with just the basics, and nothing I really want to find yet packed up in a pyramid in the new place. My mere annoyance that I cannot see the sea from the kitchen because this marvel of boxes blocks the view.

I long for creative time and in the quiet moments I search for the creativity in repetitive tasks. I fear that the only creating is in the new cleanness and not making something from separate pieces. So in the now I will rise and go back to finish out the old life so I can get on with the new, I am just a crab after all leaving the old skin behind and letting my sadness go with it.

Harder Said Than Done

I am going through the withdrawal of not having a studio. It is almost packed and ready for arrival in a heated local, and I'm not sure how long it will wait to see the light of day again. So I am taking comfort in my bravado for now.

I'm not going to stop creating art, so I think for a bit it will just be downsized. Smaller pieces that lend to faster completion. I have paired down my studio to the basics and will use those at the new place, then I can visit storage as needed.

Someone told me that maybe for a while my studio wasn't supposed to be at my home. And I wonder about that comment and so many others that are brought into our lives by people, some close, and some seeming strangers. How does one take these messages and heed them, and yet know what is of importance and what is not?