Blog

 I was looking forward to the first warm weekend of the year when I got word that someone I loved dearly but had lost touch with over the years was dying and even though it was one of the hardest things I have ever done  it was an easy choice to make.  I made two trips within a week, one to say good-by and one to stand with family while my cousin Thelma was laid to rest. 

 Life gets busy and priorities shift on a daily basis but as I age I am learning that there are times when we need to put everything else on hold and reach out.  We need to reach back to people we have lost touch with and out to those in our lives now to tell them we love them and how much they mean to us.  I didn't do that with Thelma and now it's too late. 

 The sadness I felt was softened by being  reunited with family I haven't seen in years  and  the memories that were invoked that week led me on a search I have been putting off much too long.  Thanks to the internet I have been successful in finding others who were a big part of my past.  I feel like I have been given a second chance.

 I know I can't go backwards, nor would I want to but some things need to be done now no matter what else we have planned...before it's too late.  Because there's always tomorrow to do chores or to play and make art...but we need to say "I love you" today.

 When we moved into this house nearly 20 years ago our plan was to remodel it the way we wanted it and retire here.  I'm still waiting for the remodeling to be finished and suddenly  retirement is only a year and a half away. 

 Our latest project which we started early last year was supposed to be done by Christmas but the hardwood floor wasn't done and the pellet stove was delayed by the snow and now we are waiting for furniture to arrive and the closets to be finished and curtains to be altered and hung. 

 I'm tired of living in a house turned upside down, tired of not having time or space to do the art projects I want to work on but most of all I'm just tired of waiting.  So we moved back into the new room with our old furniture so we could get the rest of the house back and in the meantime I am doing research for retirement, sorting and getting rid of junk and clutter and doing all the ordinary day to day things, things that have made up the 20 years of life in this house.  They have not always been easy years but they have been productive years.  I have stretched and grown  and have gotten a little wiser I think because I know now that waiting is just waiting and 'life' is what happens in between.

 The couch arrived on Wednesday,  I have hung art on the walls, and today the pellet stove is burning and keeping me cozy while I paint closet doors.  And that's ok because there is plenty of life to be lived while I wait for the paint to dry.

 Is that the space that gets filled with clutter and junk and empty feelings like fear and doubt, judgment and criticism, discontent and depression?  Is that the half that keeps me stuck, the half that keeps me from really excelling?  I have a good life but I know it could be better and I no longer want to allow those feelings to creep in and hold me back.

 This year I chose the word FULLNESS.  This year I want to feel and appreciate the FULLNESS of life.  I want to take all the negative feelings out of the glass and then leave the empty half empty because I remember a quote from the book 'GIFT FROM THE SEA'  "Only in space are events and objects and people unique and significant--and therefore beautiful." "My life...lacks this quality of significance and therefore of beauty, because there is so little empty space." 

 I know the universe will hear my intention and fill me up 'full to overflowing' in more ways than I can imagine.  I just need to be ready and leave space for the unexpected. 

On the long drive down I had time to wonder what I had gotten myself into...when I woke up the next morning, after an evening of good company, good conversation, and good food  I wondered why I hadn't done something like this sooner. 

We played, we learned, we laughed, and we did art while watching storms, surf, seagulls, and sunsets pretty enough to make you cry.   

The hotel accommodations and staff were wonderful and the food was......well the food was delectable and plentiful. 

But the thing I will remember the most is how I met 20 complete strangers on the day I arrived and 4 days later I left with 20 new friends.

 

So I bought a new one...and a new printer, and a new scanner.  By the time I added a second monitor, a battery backup, and a USB port hub so I have room to plug everything in, my desk is a tangle of hardware and cords with little room left to work.

During the two weeks I was off line I thought about all the ways my day to day life is connected to my computer.   Every time I started toward my desk to look something up or write an email, scan or print something out or play with a new idea in photo shop I realized how dependent on it I have become.  My photographs, my writing, my address book,  all on the computer.  Even my banking is done on the computer.

  

I know I can't go back to the 'good old days' where everything was done by hand, and I wouldn't want to, but maybe, just maybe,  because the fast pace of new technology involves a learning curve that gets steeper and longer every year and the slow pace of growing older makes it harder and harder for me to keep up, I thought, wouldn't it make life simpler if I could  just have a new hard drive installed in my brain instead?    

 

Spring has finally arrived and one of the highlights of the season is the Tulip Festival in Skagit Valley Washington.  This year I am participating in one of the many art shows going on during the month of April.  SAT (Skagit Artist Together) in association with the Tulip Valley Winery have brought together a small, informal group of about 25 artists to show their work at a working winery barn during the month long Festival.  It looks like the Tulips will show up right on time this year so why not come out and enjoy a day of  seeing one of  the many places around here that inspires so much beautiful art and even take some of it home to enjoy all year long.

 

Then March arrives and I get a summons for jury duty.  VIMH (voice in my head) stirs, ‘now is not a good time for this’.  I am excited about an art show coming up in April but getting ready is always hectic.  Hubby, who usually helps get me through the chaos, is sick again and working overtime shifts seven days a week so I’m on my own. 

 

Check list...Do my chores, do hubby’s chores, order cards, choose pieces to show, make inventory tags, coordinate schedule for days I work show, answer emails about changes in schedule, work on new artwork for the shows this summer.  VIMH laughs.  Dogs knock only backup hard drive off desk and break it.  New stuff isn’t backed up.  Trip to town, half a day wasted only minor crises number ??? from the last two weeks. VIMH sneers ‘but who’s counting’.  Plan trip to town day before I report for jury duty to get groceries and run errands...VIMH whispers ‘just in case you get stuck on a trial’...early start, long exhausting day...when VIMH warns ‘you know what happens when you get over tired’ I ignore it. 

 

Countdown...Spend the morning of shopping trip making  lists of where to go, what to buy, and phone calls to make when I get home...(call courthouse (after 5) for instructions...call car dealership about notation about my breaks on paperwork from my last oil change...no one said a word to me).  VIMH again ‘you rely on your car and don’t have time for this.’  I leave for town in the sunshine...I get home in the rain and wind of a spring storm.  The clocks are blinking and my computer is off (it was on when I left).   I Fix the clocks check the computer (remember no backup)  put away groceries and start dinner.  Hubby gets home.  Go to make phone calls while dinner’s cooking. 

 

PHONE IS DEAD......MELTDOWN

We don’t  get a cell signal out here.  It’s late, I’m tired and by now I am in tears.  Hubby gets out the phone we use when we have a power outage, plugs it in and hands it to me...dial tone working fine.  The wireless just has a dead battery.  Reality Check...VIMH  ‘all this stress, all this worry just because I got a Jury summons...what was I thinking’?  The next day I sat on a hard plastic chair for two hours then was told to go home.  I didn’t  have to come back......

 

I have a good life.  I am lucky to live where I do (in this country), express my voice through my art and complain about anything I want to and sometimes I need a reminder to be patient and take part in the things that make my good life possible.    

 

As my son so aptly put it into perspective when he face booked me after I complained about my jury summons......

”Go America...and bring a book.”

 

Maybe it’s the little voice in my head that starts screaming when I try to toss them out  ...what if I need it later?...I bought it for a purpose...I should follow through and finish things.  Then the other little voice, the rational one, whispers...later has come and gone and they’re still here unused...I don’t remember why I bought them ...why should I finish something I no longer have any interest in or any use for.  I know the voices are just fear...fear that if I get rid of all the “stuff” all my creativity will dry up. 

 

Everything in our lives has an energy and fear is the energy attached to clutter.  Clutter is sucking the energy out of me.  Clutter and fear drain me and keep me stuck...stuck in bed on a winter day when i could be out taking pictures of ice crystals on leaves...stuck cleaning clutter when I could be on my way to an art show at S A M...stuck hiding in my cave when I could be taking a class on new ways to use my photos in collage.  Stuck taking the same tired photographs when I could be looking at old ideas from a new perspective.

 

So this year I will clean the clutter out of my head as well as out of my house and make room for new energy and new ideas so next year instead of hibernating through the winter I’ll be anticipating each new day.

 When I quit my job ten years ago to explore my lifelong interest in writing and my new found interest in photography the possibilities seemed endless.  Now I realize the possibilities may be endless but my life is not.  With that in mind I’ve been looking at my future with different eyes and shifting my priorities. 

 I use to fear I would run out of creative ideas. Now I know I won’t and turning sixty five makes me want to only pursue the ones that speak to me the loudest.  So I’ve been asking myself which of my have-to-dos really have to be done and which of my want-to-dos are left over from the past and hold no interest to me anymore and which creative projects have grown so big in my mind that if I don’t turn them into something tangible my head will explode with the keeping of them inside. 

 And here is what I have concluded.  The number of years I have lived and the number of years I have left to live aren’t what’s important...living each day of those years is what counts.  Doing what I love is what makes me want to get out of bed each morning.  Doing what I love will keep me from getting old...life is too short to do anything else.