Reinvention

In the early stages of adult life we eagerly strive to create our reality.  We educate ourselves in our chosen profession-to-be, shrug off the clothing styles of school acquaintances and slip into well-worn jeans and warm sweaters and play dress up with delight when the occasion calls for it.  Forays into multi-floored stores for 'grown-up' furniture to blend with what we have scavanged from family starts to define our home.  We try on different hats, explore new interests which capture our attention, travel.  Our thirst knows no bounds.

We are the inventors of the landscape of our lives.

Castelnau Picampeau, France

Then we are hired for a job that isn't exactly what we went to college for and we shift focus.  A cozy apartment becomes a bigger one.  Padded shoulders go out of favor (thank goodness) and we morf toward new styles.  We read the book a friend lent us and see a world deeper than portrayed in romance novels.  We haunt the library for more.  Life expands and grows around us like a cocoon.

People enter our lives and some leave, moving on to follow their own path.  Loving expands us.  It is a slowly revolving door and each relationship grows us from the inside out.  We learn from example the type of person we want to be.

One job leads to another.  Relationships evolve.  Family.  Friends.  We weather crises and find strengths we didn't know we possessed.  Looking back we see a series of reinventions - one sliding into another.  Close-up, they are more abrupt. Change is scary and challenging and, at the same time, exhilirating.  Fate gives us options but we make the choices.  We move forward because the clock ticks and time's-a-wasting - this is not a dress rehearsal.  We try to pull back the reins and slow the process, but it travels on hooves hell-bent to get to the goal.

We raise a family, work to make our lives an easier journey, start saving for the 'future'.  We shift and change over and over.  We are still pulling on those reins, though.

Reinvention - it is not a goal but a stage in our continuing life.  Slip on that new jacket and take up the reins.  Hope you have an interesting ride!

Knee Deep in Snow...in October?

It has been an interesting week.  A massive nor'easter wiped out power in a great part of New England and days passed before we got ours back.  The generator failed the first day which made for pretty chilly nights. 

It was devastating to wake up on Sunday morning and see all the broken trees.  One huge branch hit the roof of the studio but slid off without doing damage, thank goodness.  Others are total losses and a huge rhododendron out front is uprooted.  Fourteen inches of wet, heavy snow dragged the branches down to the ground and held them captive.  I pulled on boots and dug out my winter coat and gloves and set about releasing the branches from the snow.  With the sun's help, perhaps they would lift back up again.  All over town (and the state) downed trees blocked roads and balanced on houses.  Just like the ice storm a few years back, the horrendous crack of branches had filled the night.  I hadn't thought I would hear that sound again.

Once again we drew chairs close to the fireplace and lit candles.  Other than the inconveniences, it was cozy and we talked and read by booklight, cooking pizza on the grill outside.  On Tuesday, when friends got their power back, they brought over their generator and hooked us up so we could have a few lights and keep the refrigerator going.  Wednesday, when the power came back on, we cleaned up the house and things started getting back to normal.  Not as long as our 12 days off the grid that icy cold and stormy December in 2008 but long enough.  My mother is still without power in Connecticut and it is not expected until late Sunday.  That is way too long.  

Getting back to normal is nice but doing without shows us that we can cope, we can be innovative and nothing is insurmountable.

Keeping the Mundane Out of My Ballet

For awhile now, I have been noticing the routine of my actions.  Getting up, getting ready for work - the patterns of my routines are mostly an unconscious ballet of concise motion.  On weekends, the pattern is more fractured.  Not burdened by the need to get out the door at a specific time, a certain relaxation of habitual motion is nice.

I have a desire to change all that.  I don't know why I am chomping at the bit to stir things up.  Perhaps it is all part and parcel to my edit and purge sweep to narrow the burden of stuff' to a pleasurable level.  'Simplify, simplify, simplify' - Thoreau. 

I was going through several of my craft drawers and rather than editing, I found myself reminiscing (must be that autumn thing).  Running my hand over needlepoint stitched many moons ago, discovering cards of antique buttons collected in a former life and treasures wrought with sweet memories I am loathe to discard tugged at my melancholy heart. 

It seems that I want freshness in my life without letting go of the comforts which include some of the usual habits.  Like a vase of fresh flowers from the garden's late season offerings, I crave a blend of old and new, comfort and adventure.

Autumn Reflections

I was just visiting Diana Baur at a certain simplicity as her inn's season is winding down and autumn visits the Piedmont in its wake.  She is looking at her seven years' history there and how different aspects of her life have prepared her for the challenges of a move to Italy and much different life than any she'd experienced before.

Frye Measure Mill, New Hampshire

As I wrote on her blog, I, too, am in a reflective mode but also one of underlying, fierce activity of the mind.  I have so much I want to do - so much to discover and savor!  As autumn in New England blooms with brilliant reds, oranges and yellows, it also signals the time when the same leaves I now enjoy on the hillsides will glide onto the ground in gentle waves and the scenery will change to something more austere.  The coming cold is not to my liking but I adapt.  I mean, frankly, in today's world, going from house to warm car to work and back again on the weekdays is not a hardship.  When the snow drifts down and builds on the tree branches in a fresh fluffy coat, I am mesmerized and love the journey.

My steps have brought me back to New England after a 30 year absence when I raised my family in Ohio and I am reveling in the sheer beauty of this area and all it has to offer.  While there are other places I would love to explore, I am thankful to be amongst such natural beauty every day.

Still, I have a few more dreams up my sleeve and, particularly at this time of year, they rise again just as summer wanes and winter's solitude is on the horizon. Time for reflection in front of a roaring fire instead of on a beach.  Time for brushing the sand off my path and seeing where it has meandered to get me where I am today. 

So far, so good.  A few bumps and bruises when I lost my footing but, overall, not a very rocky path.  I hope the road in front of me is rather smooth because I'd like that for awhile.  It will be what it will be, though, and I will adapt.  I always do.

Downsizing

I love the organization of my Franklin Planner but, over the years, it has plumped up with notes and jottings of varying importance until it is one heavy little sucker.

When you have a mind like I have which is interested in everything, having it all in one place is a life-changer.  That doesn't mean I don't have file folders with articles torn from magazines and reference photos on my computer for future paintings, it just means that the immediate post-it jottings have a home with an address and they are not on little squares which can be lost to the ether on a whim.

Now, that zippered black book is filled with years of notes.  I like it that way.  What is wearing on me is transporting it back and forth to work because I need said notes and the calendar and the address book in both places.  I do not want to duplicate it - God forbid!  What I have done, though, is get a trim little red binder which holds just my calendar, address book and two tabbed sections of plain notepaper for personal and work notes.  Personal is in the #1 tab, naturally.

I love it - it even slips in my purse.  It is a fraction of a pound.  I can swing said purse onto my shoulder without pulling it out of the socket.  I have duplicated nothing. 

I love downsizing.

Monadnock Art Tour 16

October is the perfect time to head up into New Hampshire and wander the backroads from studio to studio.  There is a leafy smell in the air that enchants and breathtaking color to amaze us.  Chris and I made our annual trek to the Dublin/Peterborough area to tour what we could of the 50 art studios tucked into the foothills of Mt. Monadnock.

Jane Howard in her studio

We packed a lunch of Tuscan pasta, sandwiches and fruit so we could make the most of our day and explore as much as we wanted to.  A quick trip to the Price's for fresh cider and we were on our way.  We started at Jane Howard's studio, eager to see how she had grown in the past year and what new things she was trying.  She was working on a self-portrait and had completed a wonderful woman knitting (you can see it next to the window in this photo).  Her architectural beach scenes have a unique quality which I love.  My favorites, though, are the painted collage still lifes like one above the window.  They tell a detailed story of varied interests which draw you in to speculate about the person who collected these items and why they are of importance.  The nice thing is that you can vary the story in your mind each time you look at the painting.  I love that about them.

We visited quite a few studios some of which were in old homes built in the late 1700s and mid-1800s.  Low beamed ceilings and wide planked floors complemented the timeless art on view.  Others had bright, light-filled studios with cans and cans of brushes and paint stained easels.  Having just bought a wide, flat blending brush, I know the obsession for good working tools.

The day was inspirational and the scenery exquisite, even if the foliage hasn't peaked yet.  All the more to enjoy in the weeks to come!

October Pumpkins

It seems that everywhere I turn, pumpkins are lined up on lintels and gracing the stone walls as I pass through Groton on my way home at night.  Mums are tucked into old iron pedestal planters and the leaves are gently turning from green to golden yellow and red.  Makes me thankful to live in close proximity to so many sugar maple trees!

I have my own cheery pumpkin which sits on my desk at work.  It is stitched in silks, perle cottons, metallic fibers and ribbon thread and is embellished with beads and memory thread with a cute little crow in the corner.  The black lacquer Betsy Box from Sudberry House is a perfect mount for it since I can hide my stash of Halloween candies inside with no one the wiser!