Tag Archives: change

Stuff and non-stuff

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A gifted bowl. Milkweed pods sprayed gold by my sister.

Even as the tableaux produces a pang about Noreen (she was rapidly declining this time last year), the simplicity pleases.

A worn wooden floor. An exalted weed. A textured bowl crafted by a friend, lively in its imperfection.

Our relationship to things changes over time, doesn’t it?

I’m always ready to take the decorations down before husband and somehow feel a little bad about that. What does my eagerness signal?

Don’t get me wrong. I love the sweet nutcrackers, the festive wreaths, and the sentimental decorations given to the boys year in and year out. They represent a life lived and lived with some modicum of joy.

They signal the advent of time-outside-of-time.

In other years, the enjoyment of displaying decorations and the pleasure at putting them away ran about 50/50. This year, there was no contest. I felt a visceral relief clearing the spaces. I can almost imagine not bothering with any of it at some point.

I’ll leave you with this shot from Finn’s and my morning walk and a stanza from a poem by Wallace Stevens:

I do not know which to prefer, / The beauty of inflections / Or the beauty of innuendoes, / The blackbird whistling / Or just after.

From Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.

Change afoot

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olive et gourmande, Montreal (last week)

olive et gourmande, Montreal (last week)

The blogging rhythm broken, giving me a bewildered sense of loss… I really am not overstating. It’s been months of trying to figure out what’s up. First it was the crashing, frustrating, newly installed PSE11 (not anymore, thankfully). Then it was D.’s college applications (done!). And tours (done for now!) Attention to writing. Major decluttering. Runs to Salem. Montreal. Schenectady.

pink-woven-close

filled with lavender buds !

And, all the while, I am sewing. Not a little. A LOT… moving pieces of fabric around, and listening to myself think. I became, this fall, weirdly resistant to being influenced. Unable, suddenly and almost violently, to partake of community that had been a place of solace and learning.  I hated the isolation created by walking away, but somehow the need to preserve some quality of solitude kept winning out.

Yesterday, it occurred to me that the decluttering impulse, twinned with solitude, could very possibly be the soul at work — struggling to create the necessary conditions for integration… muscling things about so that I can make visual pieces more congruent with where I’m at, more expressive of what’s up, and with a lighter hand.  Dare I wish this be so?!

I don’t know yet, but all of a sudden, this excites me. I am prepared to be ruthless to make it so. To be ruthless, so that I can become lighter. This makes me laugh and I’ll take that as a good sign!