Monthly Archives: September 2024

Sep5

in the wee small hours

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HI! PLEASE click the blog title to update the page as I published before I finished typing or did any edit!

Still stuck in that 80’s opposite sketch…I’m fall cleaning. I know, I know, most people spring clean. I do some of that, but I’m much more prone to deep clean in the fall. I know what’s coming: six months of long, dark winter days with the house sealed up as tightly as possible. I won’t want to go out (even less than I don’t want to go out all summer) and the furnace will run almost constantly. All the outdoor potted plants have to come in and find floor space, along with the windowsills being pressed into service to house any herbs or kitchen plants we might want to nurse along…I prepare myself as best I can.

There are some very welcome adjustments, too. My writing desk can go back in the eastern bedroom window after the air conditioner comes out. I have hot water heat and that means radiators. Unlike forced air heating, there is no fan blowing around the cat hair and dust mites to aggravate my allergies. It’s clean, consistent, and radiant. However central air is not an option (no ductwork), so we sacrifice the use of two windows for the summer to accommodate big window units, and I am grateful to have them.

The end of September the professional window washer will come and wipe away the summer dust and grime so my view is clear. I can watch the heavy wet snow in the hurricane force wind as it splats and sticks to the windows like gigantic white moths on a speeding windshield…who has more fun, I ask you?! I can sit, warm and comfy, and observe the large picture glass ripple in the wind like the surface of the lake in summer…and practice praying.

And although that is not an exaggeration, my little house sits high on a hill, just inland of the bluffs along the western shore of Michigan. It is equipped with hurricane windows and has held it’s own against the elements for near as many years as I have been alive. I do feel safe here. Once the leaves are blown off the deciduous trees I catch glimpses of light off the water when the sky allows. Most days I feel like I’m living in a shoe box and God forgot to take the lid off. Like much of the midwest in winter, the ground and the sky are the same cloudless flat grey, day in and day out and day in and day out, week after week for months on end. The sun is a rare sight. So I prepare myself as best I can.

Yes, I dust off the daylight lamps, the “happy lights,” as therapists call them. Make sure I’m stocked up on light bulbs and candles and firewood and all the blankets and fuzzy slippers are at the ready. Each of my three doors will have a container of snow melt pellets and a snow shovel within arms reach at all times. You never know when you might have to shovel your way out. I live within a mile of the grocery store, library and post office, and there will be days that trek is not possible.

All that said, I choose to live here. There are small things I would certainly do differently were I house hunting today, but it is a fabulous place to live. The views are beautiful. The quiet of a snowy winters’ day is as peaceful as it gets. It is an environment entirely suited to an introverted writer and artist. In truth, I don’t understand why anyone would live anywhere else. One of the best things about winter is that most of the tourists leave and my town becomes a sleepy hamlet again. Not as traffical.

My favorite view is toward the east, which is the direction the front of my house faces. My favorite time of day is early morning. My favorite drink is coffee. These three factors alone lend themselves to a lifestyle that I love. Just thinking about it now makes me warm and fuzzy inside…

Sep3

the sacrament of ploppage

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Anne LaMott tells me it is time to plop down into this new promise to myself; the promise that I am going to get serious now about the art – “the art that longs to be created using your hands, your heart, your spirit, and your kitchen table.” She tells me that all creative work is a debt of honor. You have to do it as a radical act. Because if you leave it too long your curiosity and creative muscles will atrophy. I am at that edge where I know it is almost too late, and I am terrified.

For most of my adult life I fought for this, this right to live creatively. But as Anne also says, “life is very life-y…” and everything and everyone else took precedent. I erroneously thought that all I wanted was a studio space. A studio space. I cannot tell you how many homes I have lived in. Let’s just say dozens. The average American moves every seven years; for decades I moved almost yearly. In every house I looked for a place to make a studio. I didn’t know how difficult it would be to make and keep a boundary around my creativity. Because I also wanted a happy family life. Anne says that no one in your family wants you to be creative. No one wants to hear about it. I wish I’d known. I was confused when they weren’t all supportive. When they were sitting in my tiny studio closet when I thought they weren’t home and that I could finally sneak away for some quiet alone time…I didn’t know that living a creative life was antithetical to having a happy family and a happy household. I don’t know how I could have been so naive for so long, but I didn’t know.

Is creativity such an indulgence? It is if your family is unhealthy. They need you. I was needed. Really, really needed. And as I now know in hindsight, I couldn’t save any of them. Not a one. But certainly not for lack of trying.

Sep1

one of the doors into the temple

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Lately I feel like I’m stuck in a 1980’s Nickelodeon Opposite Sketch. You might have to have a middle-aged child to get that! Not this, nope, not that…no, thanks. All of a sudden nothing fits. I’m an outsider in my own life. It isn’t as if this strange phenomenon hasn’t occurred many times throughout the years; I’m sure you’ve experienced it also. It simply means we are growing mentally and spiritually, and our circumstances/home/work/relationships are not as natural as they once felt. We’ve slipped in our skin.

I knew this would happen because I have been ill. As I’ve disclosed recently I had a few rough weeks in August where I was quite sick – always a precursor to a big wake-up call. If you survive an illness, you will move through some transformation to do so. It’s similar to travel, although not as fun – if you’re as present as possible through the experience it will change you. That doesn’t mean I am consciously aware of what that healing means, at least not yet. But I’m noticing now that I don’t feel very attached to the past, to my life up to now. Everything is nebulous, kinda floaty, not securely grounded, fluid. That serves as a signal to pay attention. New opportunities will be revealing themselves as I move forward – but don’t make any fast moves. Respond softly. Remain reverentially curious.

Another way of describing this might be to say that I am letting go of everything and everyone and observing who stays, what stays, how things settle in the coming weeks and months. Sickness has an organic way of doing that. For right now at least, I’m less interested in efforting. What happens, happens. I have to drop expectations. For starters, I can’t expect anyone to get it. I don’t have the strength to hold up my end of any obligation, to show up any certain way…to be who you think I am. I want to live, and that’s about all I know today. What happens next remains to be seen.

Your opinion of me is none of my business. The politicians can manage without my input. The creditors will have to wait. The house isn’t clean. I’m empty. This is a good thing, this empty. It may sound dramatic, but I have a sense of renewal, of anticipation. It is time to re-evaluate priorities, set some new goals, be specific, focus. What do I want?! Where do I go from here…?