solid

So I didn't take a nosedive. Which is as awesome as it is... disconcerting! Because here I was, all prepared to - uhm, nosedive into my usual shut-down-mode, which is where I generally find myself when chaotic happenings end (the need to take apart and rebuild everything I already knew) - but then I didn't. Which leaves me strangely at a loss when it comes to words. I'm in a good place - not Fabulous, but good, and it's unfamiliar. But if I wait untill I've got the words to bend with the road I'm on, this blog will gather dust. I promised myself it wouldn't, and yet it has been empty here for the past two weeks. I started to write and then I stopped. Drafts waiting for - clarity. Or the recycling bin. I'm not sure. Not sure of much at the moment, but - again - in an unfamiliarly good sense :) Things are cooking, but not boiled down. So here are some drawings that came out over the past couple of weeks.

Squirt's bikes. Which seemed like a great subject to draw - lots of lines and technical what-nots to fight with, as well as a good example of the theme I'd thought up for myself: growing. Yes. And then I found myself quite sad ;)

And then there's that. It wasn't immediately inspired by my kid undeniably growing, but it's a part of the whole story anyway, of course. It's something I fight with, still, at times. Not all the time, but it comes up. And right now, strange as it may sound, it feels like a solid thing to come up. Not something that will push me over any kind of edges, not something I'm making harder for myself, but something that is - understood to be hard. I don't know if that makes any kind of sense to anyone but me, but hanging out in a space where I'm actually okay, this is - alright to feel something about...

I don't feel like I'm on my toes. Of course I'm vigilant - I find myself in a strange field of wildflowers, and while I'm enjoying the scenery, and sniffing the air, I know I'm me and I'm vulnerable. But I'm dealing with things, as they come up, and so far?

I'm squeezing just fine :)

Hope you're fine, too. Hope whatever is on your plate is just enough to hang out with, on the sane side of things. 

Here's to whatever lays ahead & facing up! I'll be back... :)

quietly

There's a lot going on - in my head. But it doesn't have words. I'm just looking. And listening. Which is nice, for a change :)

How are you?

tea

I've been doing some incremental thinking ;) Life's been really busy lately, but it's been good. There isn't always time and space to crawl to the bottom of things. Full stop. But I've been okay with that - it's brought insight, instead of mayhem. & that's a whole lot, coming from me ;)

I've been thinking about staying close to myself - as opposed to running off, exploring other lives. I've been thinking about my feet, about finding them where they hang out - and I'm slowly trying to bend myself around the idea that needing to stick close to my feet can also mean - is okay to mean - not always necessarily feeling them, but keeping them in sight. Not losing them altogether. Things might well be perfect if I could feel my feet no matter what - but maybe that's just another one of those things we're being sold.

You're not off to the shop to buy a wabi sabi tea kettle - this is a metaphor, so bear with me ;) You go to the store and they'll try to sell you a Brand Spanking New Idea of Tea in the 21st Century. Because the People selling The Kettle are all about Tea. 

But life - my life - isn't at the bottom of things all about Tea. I need tea to swallow life. So that Perfect Tea will never be all that, outside the Kettle People's laboratory. Yet I buy the idea and feel less than perfect because it doesn't glu my wabi sabi life...

But nothing will - & everything will. It's inside my expectations, eventually - and inside myth. Back to my feet? They're no myth & they're totally wabi sabi. & I could buy an idea - a laboratory-perfect idea about my own feet: that they'll never do unless I feel them, always. But outside, in the world, in my life? What if anchoring means: knowing where my feet are, approximately? So I know where to find them when there's space and time to have a chat and really check in? So I can give them attention once a day perhaps, instead of expecting nothing less than an open line - feeling disappointed and at fault for losing the connection more often than I care to think? What if that would do? What if that would be enough to feel I'm still here, still near enough?

I think connection gets lost at times because I've got overgrown ideas about its nature - bought straight from the Laboratory Doors. What if anchoring really means - to buy from a street vendor & sip from a cracked cup on the corner of Life and Lost? That feels like something I could actually DO!

It's worth a thought. Or better yet - let's have tea! Let's chat & stroll down Life a little, together - admiring our feet. They take us places - even on Lost - and that's magnificent knowledge, that!