This is my family.  Daughter, Grandson, Husband, (same) Daughter, Son.  They form the basis and foundation of the world on which I spin through the Universe.  Some days the spin is effortless.  Some days it feels as if a black hole has swallowed me and I may never get out.  There are fewer and fewer of the later days as I have learned to, mostly, spin with the flow instead of trying to spin against it.  Impossible, as a rule,  spinning against it; but, I am stubborn.

I think I may have mentioned here that we are fixing our house up to sell.  As I was putting new stain on the front door I realized it was probably taking the place of my creative energy for the day – I was enjoying myself and painting anything in the house usually doesn’t do that for me.  And I had just finished painting the closet upstairs and I enjoyed that too.  And I may not make it into the studio to start on the larger set of zodiac tiles but, you know what?, that’s okay because I seem to be moving in some kind of easy rhythm.  Tomorrow will be time enough for the studio and because I’ll start at it fresh instead of late in the day, probably more fun, too.  We started on the deck this morning at about 6:30 a.m.  to beat the heat and potential rain (which would make the deck wet and unstainable until it dried and since they are calling for rain every day, that might be a while.)  Finished by noon (see myspace for more on that).

While I was doing the deck this morning I was wondering what I usually do with all this time I’m spending cleaning and manicuring the house.  Usually Husband and I chat over breakfast as that is our time together since he works nights.  And we still chatted this morning except side by side doing cut-in work on the deck railings instead of over coffee. 

I realize that I have spent a lot of time the  last few months building up my stock of ware.  It is built enough that I can stop the rote things and play with the new (hence the zodiac symbol tiles, the earth/air/fire/water tiles, and soon the zodiac figurative tiles).  There is no sense of urgent need to make something just to fill up space.  I have enough to meet all my store and gallery needs plus some left over.  Breathing room.

I’m beginning to realize that there is time enough.  I don’t have to get frantic when the plan doesn’t quite pan out.  Now I know something new and better is waiting around the corner (or maybe several corners but it eventually will arrive and I will be glad plan one didn’t work).  I don’t have to have anxiety attacks over being the perfect artist (which is a continuation of perfect child, student, daughter, wife, mother) that sort of comes along with co-dependency leftovers of a lot of my life before now.  Which  I can and mostly have left behind.  For which I am thankful for because of the lessons I learned while getting to here from there.

I guess this is all by way of saying that today, amidst the chaos that getting a house ready for market can create, and despite maybe not making it into the studio as originally planned, I am grateful for a life that is full to the brim with my family, great friends and acquaintances, good tea in the morning, a riot of green simmering outside in good ole’ Southern Maryland July heat and humidty, and a Dog who is neurotic but a great snuggler at night.

This is what I am learning:  it is  gratitude that is the baseline of the warp and woof of weaving it all together.  If I am happy with what I have, I can let go of what I don’t have.  If I flow with today, tomorrow will take care of itself.  Yesteday’s done and a memory only.  It will not change now.  I can let that go too. 

I have enough.

If you haven’t had quite enough today, click over to "Be the Change," Hoopla Trader  Boutique’s blog.  Thought provoking.  And they mention me and my current show there.  Enjoy! (you will note I also have it listed in the left column under "links" in case you forget the name or need to know how to get there other than click out here in this post.)

Thought for the day:  "Somewhere along the line an M went on the lam (but already language asks for correction: it was no line, at least no straight line, not even a well-designed symetrically-correct curve, but rather something ‘en pointille,’ a needlework crisscrossing the tracks in the snow, uneven, hobbling, appearing/disappearing……the letter I was thinking of was that first letter of the word missing, which is also the first letter of the word mother.  This is what happened to the language:  it went from mother tongue to other tongue.  At times when I stand up, on my own two legs, limbs, like right now in front of you, I have the hubris to claim that it was I who lopped it off, though when I sit down & face my job, writing, it becomes clear that this letter fell off on it s own accord somehow & that it is in the gap between mother-tongue/other-tongue that I am written.  This gap, this emptiness is liable to take my breath away.  it is the closest I’ve come to understanding what someone like Edmond Jabes means when he talks of the void, of emptiness, the desert, that interface between language and the world."  Pierre Joris