I wish I could tell you that I was doing fun and exciting things.
I wish I had erudite and fascinating thoughts to share.
But neither one is the case. I am here. I am in, and happy to be in my home, but it has been a rocky week, at least as far as my general state of mind is concerned. This move has been harder than I anticipated, harder than any prior move that I can recall. And I can't explain it.
Sunday was one of my best days in a long time. I awoke with a glad leap, and felt fully myself and full of energy for the first time since I moved back home. I watched tennis, finished the grocery shopping, had a great workout, spent an hour or so doing kitchen prep work: washing vegetables (yes even triple-washed organic baby spinach), steam-sautéeing cabbage, roasting spaghetti squash, browning ground meat, roasting some chicken thighs -- prepping food so that it is easy to make dinner (or lunch) on those days when I need to eat, need to prepare a meal, but have neither the time nor the emotional reserves to actually cook. Long ago, when I was in my 20's, I learned the value of some advance prep work and the way a little time spent on shopping day could help with getting dinner on the table in 15 to 30 minutes or so on those days when energy or inspiration prove elusive. I still think cooking is fun, but sometimes I just need something delicious to eat without much fuss. I used to think prep work was a tedious pain, but I've learned to make a game of it and the payoff is definitely worthwhile. Without a mountain of prep, pulling together a simple meal can be quickly satisfying.
The prep work came in handy on Monday. Monday was a different story. Monday morning I found myself fighting back a growing quaver in my voice as I discussed frustration over things not yet done in the studio, minor things to be sure, minor delays about which I had felt a trifle annoyed but not necessarily emotional on Sunday. I struggled not to burst into tears. I found myself hiding in the bedroom or the library, feeling teary and fragile, emotionally far more overwrought than the situation warranted. I don't think it was just the delays in getting into the studio that set me off -- probably an impossible to discern jumble of things, a bit of a struggle in the gym one day, even if followed by a really good workout another, the constant presence of noise and workers and interruptions, the sense that I can never quite finish anything, never quite be alone, a conversation with friends where I perhaps allowed myself to be a little more emotionally vulnerable than is my wont -- that alone could kick me on the path to self recriminations -- but it also seems evident that a supportive response to that vulnerability also caught me by surprise. I am far more prepared for rejection than I apparently am for tenderness and the surprise of it has left me feeling even more vulnerable, a touch more exposed, although I suspect that ultimately it is in a good way.
I simply don't know where I am. I am not referring to physical location here, that is evident, but my emotional landscape still feels a bit jagged and uneven. I am confident in my intelligence, in the many things I can do well, and yet there is a vulnerability, perhaps partly in simply exposing a dream, and the realization that I have stumbled on yet more walls that need to come crashing down and more teary track's through the wreckage.
I am surrounded by energy and excitement. Bluestone arrived Monday afternoon. I was thrilled to see it, thrilled to watch it be unloaded, excited by all progress. At the same time I am also exhausted by the very same hubbub, by the sense of being constantly exposed. By the time every one goes home I am too tired to pull myself together, and I feel as if all my nerves have been stretched thin.
And yet.....
I started unpacking fabric yesterday even though there is still no furniture. Workers are uncovering the windows today. I went out and bought a crochet hook. I can knit tonight.
Part of the back yard is starting to take shape. The stonemasons are here today, placing that bluestone on this patio. As I sit here typing, three men are 15 feet away, finally finishing up the guest bathroom....
Perhaps even here, in my heart and head, as I sit and type, I am creating a new emotional path. Will there be more tears? Probably. But how could there be joys in a world without tears? Perhaps that is all it is, profound happiness, sometimes requiring its toll in profound sadness. I would want to say it isn't so, but I would never give up the happiness, even if it meant fewer moments of tears. Somehow, someday, this particular vista will all fall in place. And then the heart will find new paths to explore, new fields of flowers and new rocky shores..