Treasury

Latest creative project

As I age, I endeavour to look at the additions in my life rather than the subtractions. Subtractions are so many,I can overlook the additions.

I have renewed contact with a family member which is enhancing my life once again. (No, not Missing Daughter). This shared history, the aging process and family news catchup means a lot to me. I can gnaw at those absent ones, but that does not serve me well. I celebrate this renewal, this rebirth, and put no expectations on it, for I stay in the moment with each conversation.

I get so absorbed in my needlework that I forget to eat. I'm working on this artist's palette and a burst of stars on a new shawl (see above) and being absorbed in the creative process drenches my soul in light and gratitude.

Forgiveness and understanding come easily as I age. A good friend had shut me out for several months, much to my bafflement and hurt. A few nights ago she texted me to come over if I was available. I did, with some trepidation. (Was I going to be accused of something, anything? Was the chill going to be reinforced?). Her husband hugged me as I came in and she lurked in a corner looking at me nervously. I didn't hold back. I held out my arms and said: give me a hug. She did, quite teary. I don't know what the estrangement was all about and I don't want to know. It may happen again. Or not. But I'm not wasting any more speculation on it.

I love the Irish expression of: "he/she had notions there for a while." It sometimes explains a whole pile of unexplainables. We all get them. Off with the fairies nursing slights or hurts. Real or imagined. Finding words for such behaviour can be difficult without sounding insane or unhinged.

I'm dealing with such a scenario with my young friend at the moment. Helping her label her feelings. As she can't. I was there once, in another lifetime, a frightening place to be. And someone dear took the time with me to walk me through the emotions and help me label them and understand the turmoil. I'm passing it on.

So yes, there is much in my treasury right now. It may look like slim pickings to some, but it is abundantly rich to me.

Melange a Trois

(1)I can't imagine what life is like without some creativity or passion in it. Any creativity. One of my dear buddies now since gone, would make log cabins out of those flat icecream sticks, with a working fireplace of pebbles and the chimney lined with tinfoil and a porch with rocking chairs on the front.

Me? Well I write and knit. And yesterday I finished this massive knitting project. It took me months but now it's winging its way to Massachussets to a sweet young friend whom I wrote about here. She sent me this incredible yarnbowl, right out of the blue, when Ansa died and signed it "Sunset for Ansa".

We had one of those rare instant connections at her father's wake. The kind that sees into each other's souls. Rare enough to be treasured.

(2)Since I moved here I've had the chance to explore my personality in ways I couldn't even dream of when I lived in the metropolis. Time, the gift of time and beauty all around me frees up the mind and imagination like nothing else does. The timelessness of the ocean at my door, the salt-laden walks on the shores or in the pine drenched woods invigorates, wakes up dormant brain cells.

(3)I continue to whittle away at "stuff". Discarding 5 items a day. Should be more like 10. Attaching the words precious or important or valuable to pieces of it is dangerous. A burn barrel is where much of it is going. And the dump. I don't want any kind of clutter in my new home. I'm listing what's coming with me. And so far it's not much. Clutter is weighty and murky and has a stranglehold on the psyche. I lived that in a marital home way back and remember feeling so overwhelmed as we conducted a 3 day sale around and in the property. Given space, I will fill it. Time to let go. Of inner and outer stuff.

Gifts

"What a gift it is," he says, "When all that is required is a shift in lifestyle, paying more attention to the details of day to day life with the promise being that life will get better."

I explained to my counsellor about my specialist's findings. How alarming. How demolishing.

I reflected on my three dear, dead friends. I feel he knows them intimately now. Along with my family of origin.

What an opportunity it would have been for them to change direction, make some slight adjustments to the sails and tack into a different direction on the great ocean of life. But alas their deaths had no such advance warning.

My gift indeed.

"Who do you talk to? Intimately I mean?" he asks me.

"You," I said after a minute, "Only you, there is no one else. Truly."

"But there is room for others, is there not?"

"I suppose. But shared history, depth, no way that can be replaced."

"I agree. But your spirit needs nurturing and maybe this freedom is giving you another gift in that you honour the memories of these beloved friends by opening up the space left inside you and use your last few precious years to explore your own creativity further."

Flotsam and Jetsam

I don't know about you, but I find that the creative energy can be sucked right out of you when life goes sideways. Like there's only room in the head for some flotsam and jetsam - no choice, take it or leave it - and it pushes everything else right out the ear. So you're left with maybe a book that you can climb into or various games of solitaire, the kind that you can get over involved with. I imagine if I had a teevee that I would be glued to it, anything to completely numb out and NOT THINK. Noise, distraction, meaningless repetitiveness.

The bench you see above is at Daughter's Place. I designed and knitted the cover for it back in August as the existing cover that was on it (a marvellous flea market find) was falling apart. The colours match her living room furniture.

I stayed with Daughter over the weekend and I kept staring at it. And then I took a picture of it. And then I thought: I have that old bench in my house, cover falling apart too. Maybe? And I took designing pen to paper and now I've started on another cover and the flotsam and jetsam can hardly breathe, I do believe they're choking.