Ps

There were some corrections that needed to be made in the last post, but blogger is being a spoiled brat. So you'll have to set your eyes on autocorrect

Percolation and rumination

It's been 23 days since my last post. Yes.  An almost unheard of amount of time to be away, in the past 9 or so years. Some days brought 3 or 4 posts a day. Some days witty, some raging, some using f-bombs, some poetic. All from the heart, though.
This past month has been the gelling of this past year. This was my 2nd Christmas alone (ish). And there was none of the panic of not having a group to gather around a tree and table...I almost didn't decorate at all, but decided to string up the red &green chili pepper lights and set a number of small trees up around the house. And it was good. I've spent the past year in what I call spackling mode...running and doing and planning and striving to fill every tiny moment...so I didn't have time to think. To process. To grieve. But grief has it's way with you when you least expect it - reaching for his favorite soup in the grocery store and realizing there's no one to eat it. Needing to phone a friend from the lonely paper goods aisle, as you open a box of Kleenex and try to sob inconspicuously. It will come no matter how fast you run, or how you try to medicate. I embraced my grief, finally, having learned that the dragon will eventually get bored and move on. The tears eventually stopped, I noticed one day. I moved on. In my marathon of busy, I had made friends -good friends. And as my interests reignited, and my worldview expanded once again, I felt at peace. I realized I was living in a new reality - one that included many situations that had once terrified me.  I had lost every safety net, and been bounced off a few rocks, but I'm still standing. And I was able to keep the sweetness of life...the intangible things that can't be bartered for over a polished conference table. I feel deeper...I am the person I feared...budgeting, watching, careful.  And I see how it makes a person appreciate things more, and how the choices you make are intentional. I once bought 8 dozen Gerbera daisy bunches because I couldn't decide what color to get. Eight dozen. That purchase is so far out of my realm now, and it seems like an embarrassing waste.
I've come to see how I can be so critical of those who share my heart. Or maybe it was just my heart telling me it was being shared with the wrong person. Either way, I had a share in the blame, though to this day, I have no idea what the actual last straw was that brought forth the cruelty of a sudden divorce announcement 2weeks before Christmas. It was not unwanted, but the timing was notable.
This past year has held some of the darkest and also some of the brightest moments/days/weeks. And I've sucked the marrow from the bones of it all, taking it gladly and learning from the worst of it and from the best. My boundaries have been redrawn...my heart is open...my step is steady.
I've always been honest with you here, and I will say that I am grateful for it all. Grateful for the growth that came. Grateful for the opportunities that have opened. Grateful for new strength, and new eyes.
Along with the fire, came a retooling, of sorts.
It's been a full year since I've been able to make art. Not even bad art. There is a force field, of sorts, around my studio. I don't know how to work in there anymore. I have nothing to say in paint and wax and plaster and paper. It may change some day. Maybe not. I don't mourn it or try to force it like I had been doing. It's just gone in a very definite way. Re-expressing itself in the remaking a heart, a home, a life. And there's where my luck gets lucky.
I started this space way back when, on what remains as the saddest day of my life...when I had to say good bye to my Kita. And tonight, on my birthday eve, I say so long to this space. It will remain up, but I'm feeling like it's time to step back. At least for a time. If you subscribe to the feed, you'll know if I couldn't resist talking to you here. But it feels like a different chapter is beginning. Thank you sincerely and deeply for riding along with me here all these years...for your comments and emails. I feel the love, and wish it back to you ten-fold. Xox, Kita's mom.

Wishing for the ease with which I moved through my days and nights and weeks and months...not having to force myself to go out and try something new with new people in new places...everything was well at hand. I'm probably not describing it properly, but... My New Reality is that unless I make a strong effort to engage with the world, I will sit alone...there is no longer an assumption of a big holiday dinner, or holiday of any sort...unless I make it.  I was always the Maker, but there was always a cast of characters that were the supporting cast and crew...was. Now, there is me. Last year, I was too stunned and shell-shocked to notice, I think. This year, the empty table clangs loudly as I walk through the dining room.  I laugh at the plans I had to make that room bigger. Tonight, I allow myself a moment to feel the full intensity of being alone as the world (it seems) prepares for a holiday with baking and family and too much of everything. But just for a moment. Just one moment. Then I'll grab onto the shred of a thought of the blessing in this - the one that would allow for a gathering of Also Alone folks. And hope they'll come.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9CEEEC2EE2C2A8BEhttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9CEEEC2EE2C2A8BE

‘Deep in the wintry parts of our minds we are hardy stock and we know there is no such thing as work-free transformation. We know that we will have to burn to the ground in one way or another, and then sit right in the ashes of who we once thought we were and go on from there.’

Yes.

How are you? She asked.
Mostly really good. Really good. Some days really bad. Mostly good, though. And you?

We sat at the cafe in a bookstore. The rain trying to turn to snow outside.  A heady, full nose of fresh ground beans and cinnamon and vanilla inside. A very perfect place to be.  A very perfect place to wander through after arriving intentionally early. A very perfect place for a small and quiet, hardly noticed panic attack as the mind reminded the body that it was a year almost to the day that he said he was leaving.  But that was so many nights and days and moments and lessons ago...that was long before I learned how to stop that faucet by the garage from leaking...long before I learned how to seal cracks in a driveway and how to use a wrench and how to sleep alone in a California King-sized bed. Before I remembered how to cook for one.  And before I finally stopped shaving my legs.
She had been through worse, with a very public incident not involving her, but splashing her with its mud all the same.  She had fled to the other side of the world.  And was back now, still wounded but finding strength from us.  She is too good to let sit shackled to the past.  She still wonders how, why, WHY.  I tell her to step up and over and out.
It was a good day to clasp hearts with an ever-growing circle. It was a good day to take deep breaths in the cooking section, knowing my table will be filled, once again.  Some day.

My puppy sleeps with one paw against my leg, as if to keep track of me.  It would not be possible, some days, without him.