restingmotion

Progress and Interruptions

I am struggling with internet connectivity today and keep losing words.    I will be back, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week.

 

In the meantime here are two photos:

Last week:

 

This week:

 

Puttering in the kitchen

I was tired this past weekend, and I gave myself permission to be tired.  I am not certain that this was so much a physical tiredness, as it was a physical manifestation of a basic introverted sort of emotional and psychological tiredness.  I needed to be quiet, to be still.  I needed the house to be quiet and be still as well.

 

The stonemasons were here early Saturday morning laying bluestone on the back patio and walk in preparation for the rain that was supposed to come on Monday.  The rain did indeed come and the masons returned yesterday, but that is another story, for another day.  While they were working on the back patio, I trekked downtown to the Market Square Farmer's Market.  I came home with this haul:

I returned home just as the masons were leaving, for which I was grateful.  I needed to work in the studio, hard pressed against a deadline, and did not look forward to traipsing back and forth across their workspace.   But before I could get to work I needed, at a minimum, to unpack.  I was too tired for my normal wash and prep work, tired enough to worry that I would make my deadline, even without the added kitchen work.

 

I did however, also need to eat. In my bag were some chanterelles and some lobster mushrooms (upper right corner, on the paper bag).  I saw the lobster mushrooms first, and initially turned down the chanterelles because I had already purchased the lobster mushrooms.  But I went back, my mind filled with dreams of a late breakfast of eggs and chanterelles.  Initially I planned an omelet,  but by the time I sautéed the chanterelles I was so needy for sustenance, that I just turned down the heat to its lowest setting, and scrambled the eggs slowly in the butter and mushroom juices.  No regrets, just deliciousness.

 

I didn't even fret about not doing my usual round of food prep and cook-up.  I accepted that I was tired, that my schedule was actually pretty open, and I could allow myself to do as much or as little as I wished.  I gave myself permission to putter....

And somehow instead of cooking I felt like organizing cookbooks.  Slowly:  about 16 linear feet of shelf space over three days.  As I sorted, I would pick up a book and glance through its pages, perusing volumes that have become like old friends, and when I was tired I would walk away to return later.  No added pressure to do anything.  In many ways it was like an extended visit with old friends; with  a few new acquaintances thrown in as well. I still have my first cookbook.  I still cook form it, although only occasionally now.  But my collection isn't exactly about recipes, although that is part of the story.  I have books that I love for what I have learned from them, how they have changed my attitude and understanding about food and cooking, and my skills, whether or not I follow the author's recipes or not.  And of course there are new books in there as well, new friendships to be formed perhaps, although I realize that some of the new cookbooks will not mesh, and will be replaced.

 

I also spent part of the weekend rereading Lidia Bastianich's first cookbook, La Cucina di Lidia which was written before her PBS show, before she became a celebrity chef. It remains one of my favorite books.  The food is simple and true to its nature and source,  It is filled with memories for me, but also with inspirations and things I still want to cook.  It is delicious to read.  I spent a lovely afternoon knitting and reading, also remembering, but not in a clinging nostalgia-ridden way.  I remembered going to the Italian Market in Poughkeepsie, the one that would have baskets of fresh snails and I remember buying them and cleaning and cooking them, I remember learning to cook tripe.   Well, I had always loved the flavor tripe gave to a broth -- my parents made a good tripe soup -- but until this book I had disliked the tripe itself (I studiously tried to pick the tripe out of the soup).  Lidia taught me how to cook tripe in a way that enhanced the flavor and texture. I grew up eating tripe because my parents would buy a side of beef, or did they buy a whole cow, before it was trendy, but because it was an economical way to feed a family.  I don't remember eating heart, which I now like, although I do remember struggling with the liver.   But the book is not only about snails and tripe, although Lidia Bastianich's cooking in this book leans toward the Istria cooking of her childhood. It is about an approach to food that  embodies simplicity in terms of integrity toward the materials, to the act of cooking, and feeding others as an act of love and sustenance, in all the many forms sustenance can take, but not necessarily simplicity in terms of ease of use.  But we confuse ease and simple sometimes.  This book stays in my library because it is a part of my own evolving understanding of the world and life and my own place in this world.  This book stays in my library because it makes me want to walk into the kitchen, even when I am tired.

And yes.  I did get back into the kitchen, even that same day, although most of the prep-work was put off until Sunday and Monday.  As I had shopped I had imagined one of the lobster mushrooms, sautéed until just soft, with a little caramelization along the edges, with warm spices, served over a bed of little gem lettuces.  I ended up adding merguez as well. Lobster mushrooms look large and sturdy, and one would think they would keep, but they do not.   It was the perfect, simple dinner for a lazy day.  Sunday morning the last lobster mushroom was turned into a hash with shallots and sweet potatoes.  

 

The books have all been put away and I am now slowly organizing the kitchen, again only in fits and starts, while also cooking my way through my haul.  There is no expectation here, no pressure to finish by a certain time.  The outside of the house is madhouse of work, but inside there is just time and peace.  When I am hungry I can just open the refrigerator door and allow inspiration to light the way.   Need satisfied with a bit of play. 

Ups and Downs...

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..

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday: Fragmented Thoughts

My brain has felt fragmented of late, as if I cannot hold onto thoughts -- they skitter away like mice seeking shelter.  I played bridge yesterday, for the first time in a couple of months, but after an initial semi-burst of focus, my attentions wandered, bouncing around the room, flitting between conversations, everywhere and nowhere all at once. I lost count. When I was supposed to deal I shuffled.   I don't remember being this scattered after a move before.  Perhaps I was and have simply forgotten; the fractures in memory perhaps a gift.

 

Perhaps I should just capitalize on that, meandering and fragmented thoughts today, assuming that cohesion and coherence will follow in their own good time.

 

(1)

This is the first week that I am not constantly exhausted, that I awake with a glad heart rather than yearning to burrow deeply beneath the covers, seeking rest but really unable to slow myself down enough to actually achieve a restful state.  Actually, I started to feel rested over the weekend, and I took a break from exercise, which may have helped.  Rebooting my exercise regime while moving may have been a tad ambitious;  but then I've always tended to operate at either full-throttle or full-stop. Overdone or undone:  one has no recourse but toward self-compassion.

 

(2)

 

The shelves for the master bathroom finally arrived last week and I was able to finally unpack and begin to organize.   This photo was taken when there was still a yellow film over the window.  I posted another picture yesterday, of the other set of shelves once the window was revealed.  I am well aware that open shelves would not work for everyone, but I've come to hate drawers.  They are never the right size for the things I want to store in them, and I am very particular about things being grouped and lined up particular ways, about there not being a mess. No junk drawers for me.  If it can't be lined up in a way that everything is visible, then there is simply too much.  

 

My mom is probably rolling with laughter at that because she well knows how much I tend to create huge messes when I am in the throws of some creative inspiration.  Perhaps that is exactly why I want the rest of my life to be orderly.  Perhaps this is also the constant struggle in my own walk through life, how to balance my need for peace and orderliness with the danger and messiness of creation, tinged as it is with a basic underlying laziness.  One thing about maturity, one does eventually learn that it is easier to maintain a system than it is to wrest orderliness out of chaos.  There is always some spot of chaos in my house, in my relationships, everywhere really.  I don't think you can force life into a particular mold.  Life is never really perfectly balanced, always a delicate dance along a fine line.

 

(3)

I wrapped the shade around the Alta Costura lamp last night and it is finally standing in my living room, for the first time since moving into this house.  The shape is made by the artful shaping of a long rectangle of translucent PVC.  Designed by Joseph Aregall in 1992, the lamp is inspired by the work of Balenciaga, and is a wonderful lesson in the art of draping, and a reminder of what I like about dressmaking.  It is always that transformation that appeals to me, in sewing and knitting as well, as taking a simple line or a simple 2-dimensional rectangle and creating something three-dimensional that flatters and is beautiful.

 

This detail, this small thing, somehow in my heart, cries "home at last".

 

 

 

In....And In Progress

Oh dear, oh dear, I feel like I should be channeling the White Rabbit, muttering some variation of "I'm late, I'm late" except that it is more like "I'm behind, I'm behind, I'm terribly behind".......

I am back in the house and most everything in the house was completed before move-in but there were still enough unfinished things that the first 10 days involved the house being constantly being filled with workers from the various trades.  There were days I could unpack and days where I was surrounded by rooms in various states of undress, with various half-unpacked and half-finished projects dominating the scene.  It was more stressful than I could have imagined, and there were several moments where I was supremely grumpy or close to tears.   But a quiet house over the weekend, and some lovely time spent with friends has also helped.   I am here now and there are a few small oases of calm, one of them here, in my library/office/occasional guest room, although I am afraid the guests may get short-shrift being relegated to an aerobed with a feather-bed topper.  Fine by me as I am more interested in owning a house I use daily than in space that sits empty but for a few days a year.

 

A couple of views from my desk this morning, out the window next to my desk (top) and into the library from my desk, which is at one end.  Books are all on the shelves, although not necessarily sorted or arranged in any coherent order, but that can happen over time.  My desk is actually a mess, I haven't yet managed to organize this corner, but that is not as upsetting as it might be simply because I am able to look out, past the clutter into this calming and inviting space. This is one of the few places that is safe today, a place where Tikka, Moisés and I are happily ensconced.

Although I may have to wander downstairs soon for another espresso.  I haven't quite mastered the new espresso machine yet, but I have made many cups of very good coffee and even occasionally almost gotten the right proportion of rich dark coffee and crema.  I knew it would be a work in progress with a bit of a learning curve.  But pulling an espresso has proven to be one of those simple joys I look forward to daily.  

 

Otherwise, not much to report.  I've been to the farmer's market, bought my first, small, bag of food, roasted a chicken, started playing with new appliances, but am not yet really fully settled...the kitchen itself is not yet fully settled or installed so it is a bit of a process, but life is always an adventure.  Here's to hoping that the studio is really finished by the end of this week (as promised, and no I am not holding my breath) and that my house and eventually a studio will be a refuge in the midst of the chaos that ensues when my parking lot is turned back into a yard.

 

More later....

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quick Update -- Some Progress and Some Delays

I finished a couple of sweaters that had been sitting around.

 

First, a slouchy teal cashmere sweater that I was knitting off and on last year, posting this photo last December:

I finished the knitting in February and blocked the pieces, with full intentions of sewing everything up during March.  That never happened for various reasons,  but it was the first sweater I put together while I was visiting my mom in Texas.

 

Sorry, no photo of me wearing it, yet, but already I am looking forward to cashmere weather. The Pattern, named Simple and Relevant,  is one of the Sweater of the Month patterns from L'Atelier in Redondo Beach, I think from 2017, and the yarn is DK weight cashmere.  Although you can't really see this in the above photo, the sweater is wider at the shoulders and more fitted at the hips, and the sleeves are narrow and closely fitted (which you can see).  This was exactly the shape of sweater I was looking for when I started this sweater, having felted a beloved, 10-year old cashmere sweater with a similar shape in the apartment washing machine on the not-so-delicate, hand-wash setting. The pattern calls for a wider boatneck, and the neckline on my sweater is a modified boat, with small amount of drape, which suits me much better. 

 

The second sweater is a summer sweater that I originally knit in 2012.  I don't really know why I didn't finish it but suspect it was because I was smaller at the beginning of 2012 than at the end of the year, when George was failing rapidly and I was struggling with depression.  I was about 20 to 30 pounds heavier than I am now.  In retrospect, now that I have finished and tried on the sweater, I think I was afraid it wouldn't fit so I simply put it in a box and forgot about it.  This I will wear now, and it is seasonally appropriate.

Here is the pretty sucky selfie I took in a hotel mirror yesterday morning.  The pattern is from Lang Yarns Fatto a Mano #182, published in January 2011, pattern number 67, and it is knit in a cotton ribbon yarn called Sol Dégradé.  The original pattern called for a fairly high crew-neck, and I simply lowered it to a more flattering scooped shape.  I have lost the piece of paper with the math, but I really don't need the now.

 

I am moving in to the house today, but I am not sure if I am living there yet.  There is at least another week's worth of work in the house itself, but I should be in residence over the next couple of days.  It will be an adventure.  The studio floor is not yet finished; therefore all fiber-related furniture and materials will be in a temporary holding area and unaccessible.  I suppose I should be grateful as this will force me to settle into the house, when I really want nothing more than to be playing in the studio. I have one more (winter) sweater to assemble and finish with me, and some linen yarn to start another summer sweater.  I think I will drape that linen yarn around the chair in my hotel room tonight and manually wind it into balls, ready to begin.  It is always good to look forward and start something new when one is a little frustrated about the present.

 

Ready... (or not)....

I'm ready. 

 

I've spent a few days in Texas visiting my mom.  Today I begin the drive back.  I no longer do 13 hour drives in a single day, not traveling by myself, or with Tikka.  Probably not even with a human companion as I fear the consequences would be a certain lack of ability to stand up straight. We adapt.  

 

Wednesday is the first day of moving back into my house.  A couple of new rugs arrive, rugs the were not necessarily required as part of the remodel, but which were ordered anyway.  I may have gotten carried away.  I can accept that about myself, an excess of enthusiasm, a tendency toward too-muchness, a lifelong battle that, balanced with the sure knowledge that the entire issue of too much or too little is really almost irrelevant.  It is not the things or the space that make life worthwhile, or which bring satisfaction, joy or contentment.  Perhaps not even happiness, but then it seems to me that happiness is but a fleeting thing, a shadow emotion and perhaps we give it too much weight.  Joy and contentment, satisfaction, peace -- these are all more deeply lasting, and they carry no dependence upon external things.

 

On Wednesday the first load from the movers also arrives.  137 items.  Mostly boxes, I think, but furniture as well.  The majority of the kitchen and master bedroom, but not all.  A fraction of the books.  The remainder, the things that have been in storage the last 10 months arrive on Thursday.  I am ready, although truthfully unpacking is something that one looks forward to both with joy and trepidation.

 

Although I am ready, ready to be home, ready to arrange and rearrange, fret and fluff, I fear the house is not.  Well, the house is probably mostly ready -- it has been progressing without me although I had been warned that they may still be working in a couple of less essential rooms.  There is always a punch list.  The studio is probably not ready and that is proving to be source of frustration because even as I know it will take me time to unpack, to settle, to arrange and rearrange, the place I really want to be is in the studio.  I want to make something.  New pajamas come to mind.  I am in desperate need of new pajamas, but that is really just an excuse, a first step.  One must steel oneself, prepare to expect little and hope perhaps to be surprised.

 

Tomorrow, the house.... 

 

 

The Good, The Bad, and the Merely Meh....

It is possible I am coming down with a cold.  It is also possible that I merely have a sore throat due to sinus drainage from allergies.  I am hoping for the later, but am not yet convinced.  I have had more colds this winter-into-spring-that an any time since the first winter I moved to Knoxville and started spending more time with a certain 5-year old, un-accustomed as I was to school-yard germs.  I am ready to be home, and in my mind that alone, the fact that I am not home, is the source of all these niggly little upsets.  Perhaps not, but please don't burst my bubble.  The thought of home is a good reward.

Despite my scratchy throat, today is a good day. Despite my tendency toward petulant self-pity, I cannot help but smile. The sun is shining.  I went for a walk.  I've scanned, shredded, and carted away several boxes of old paperwork that I refuse to move one more time. I had a bowl of red curry soup for lunch and the spice of the curry cleared my sinus while the creaminess of the coconut milk base soothed my scratchy throat.

I read quite a few good books in April although not perhaps books that led me into deep thought.  Sometimes thinking is overrated.  One needs simply to be allowed to enjoy.  I had not read anything by Kate Morton or Belinda Bauer before, but I shall seek out their other novels.   I thought that Ta-Nehisi Coates managed the almost impossible in The Beautiful Struggle.  There is one point where he seemed to encapsulate perfectly in poetic prose that moment of self-realization and actualization, when a child begins to come into him- (or her-) self, when a person stands on the cusp of knowing who they are in the world.  He does this, and he reminded this reader of her own childhood and the childhood of her friends, touching on the universality of humanity, while also laying bare the fragility of childhood and the fragility of experience.  Coates childhood was not my childhood, could never be, and yet in one moment he simultaneously tied us all together and shredded all my myths.  By making me feel what we had in common, he also made me feel the shattering differences of our experiences and what we can never share. A book worth reading again.

 

But not all the book were keepers. I took a couple of bags of books I don't think I will want to look at again to the second-hand book store, including a few items from my April reading list. Included were  the Dan Brown, which was entertaining enough (meh), the Mary Higgins Clark, which I found to be the weakest of the Under Suspicion series.  But then I am really not a Mary Higgins Clark fan to begin with, so I am probably also not a good judge.  I also sold Master and Margarita, which was good, and may well be one of the great books of the 20th century, but which didn't really resonate with me.  I won't read it again, unlike the other "great" satiric 20th century novel The Tin Drum, which I adored and will read again and again.  Also on the "meh" list is  The Beautiful Edible Garden.  It is one of three books I have been reading as I think about my garden and my dreams for its evolution, and it has pretty pictures, and great bones if one doesn't know much about garden design, but it doesn't really offer enough substance to be useful, nor does it offer any options or information for readers in areas other than the author's California planting zone.  

Otherwise construction and planning and packing continue apace.  The first Saturday Market Square Farmer's market was last weekend.  I tried to go early but only partially succeeded.  It was already crowded when I arrived at 9:15, but I still enjoyed walking around and shopping.   

I didn't buy the bread, although I ran into a friend, who did.  We chatted and shopped and decided to go to brunch.  I intended to return to that first stand to purchase some of those wonderful white Japanese turnips you see in the top picture but instead we dawdled and chatted and by the time I got back, all the Japanese turnips were gone.  Alas.  I tried some small red turnips instead, which I had never had before. They were delicious, a mild turnip with an almost buttery roundness to their flavor..

Here is my small haul.  The red turnips are on the right with the beautiful greens.  I also bought rainbow radishes, which I am still eating.  The radish greens got a little wilted while we chatted and brunched, but it didn't really matter as I prefer them cooked anyway. The beef knuckle bone went into a pot of stock, which simmered away in the slow cooker most of yesterday.  In fact, a ladle of fresh stock, the remainder of the greens, and some left-over steak made for a lovely soup when I finally returned home for a late dinner.  I had worried about over-buying.  Instead I may have not purchased enough as everything is now gone, except a couple of radishes and some eggs. 

One final good thing.  The tile installers finished the tile in the powder room.  The painters  need to return and repaint the trim, which is supposed to be black and not blue.  The schedule calls for black.  But even that cannot dim my enthusiasm.  Trim can be repainted.  The tile and the sink make me very happy. Eventually, the black trim and the wallpaper will make me even happier.  

 

 

 

 

Necessary Accounting and an Update

April has been an interesting month.  I have been looking forward to the arrival of May, mostly because it signaled, in my mind at least, the beginning of the end, the countdown to returning home.  Of course things are never quite so simple.  I learned yesterday that my return will be delayed, and so I ended April with a bit of a whimper, and a need to pull inward for a bit, a need to resettle my rapidly fraying nerves.

 

But there were good things in April as well.

1. I reconnected with this blog after a month-long sabbatical.  I believe the break, and may own process of remodeling and reconstruction, of uprooting and reconsidering, has given me new focus that is reflected here as well as elsewhere in my life.  
2. I committed to posting daily, or almost daily, updates on Instagram.  This works for me personally, as a way to focus on good things happening, and occasionally not so good.  I see the two formats, Instagram and Blog, as different aspects of a personal journal/blog/scrapbook and I keep that I will maintain this format at least for a while.  I am trying to avoid duplication between the two sites, but so far that has not happened, and avoiding all duplication may be an unrealistic expectation, just as avoiding duplication and repetition in life is unrealistic. 
3. I finally removed the old subscribe button and added a "subscribe by email' on the side of this blog.  I should probably add a link to Instagram as well.
4. I've settled more into being comfortable with myself, who I am and who I want to be.  This means that I am also far less concerned with what anyone else thinks.  That realization and self-acceptance, has allowed me to become something more of a social butterfly than I had ever thought possible.   I'm still an introvert, but I'm also definitely a social introvert.  And no that is not a contradiction in terms. 
5. Many plants that I put in last spring, unsuspecting as I was of the impending disaster area that my yard would become, survived the winter and the demolition and reappeared this year, a joyful reminder that life carries on. 

I planted the both the iris tectorum (at the rear) and the other plant with purple flowers last spring.  I don't know what the busy plant in front is, with the small purple flowers, but I love it.  Luckily I know where I got it, so I may have to take a snippet of the plant with me when I go shopping for more.  Much as I would like to be playing in the small garden bed now, I have been forcing myself to hols back.  As you will see below, too much is yet to happen.  And yet the blooming of the garden gives me great joy, and this small side bed is the one off-limits area of the garden, a constant source of renewal, and a reminder of both what my garden once was, and what my new garden might be.

 

In fact, I was actually looking at a photo of last year's garden earlier this week, when I was re-reading a post from April 2018.  I remember the garden fondly. and I suppose it is a good sign, a sign of my increasingly equanimity and recovery from the shock of upsets that started this project, that I no longer despair at what was lost but am beginning to look forward to what may someday be.  (a long someday in the future I might add).

But of course that garden disappeared in November and much has changed in the intervening months, and although I am thrilled with my contractors and the increasingly evident results, the process has been more than challenging.  I am now at the point where I sometimes feel stretched thin, nigh unto snapping, balancing my joy with the results against my own almost permanent state of high-strung nervous overwhelm.  Of course I won't snap.  I am more resourceful than that.  But my limits have been tested, and, at this point, I occasionally feel like every nerve ending, physical, emotional, psychological is at the point where it will soon vibrate at some frequency that I cannot control.  And then I calm.  The garden helps me calm.  The small progresses. Instagram is good for that.  An ongoing record of my happy places. 

 

This was the front yard Monday morning.  A little over half of the driveway had been removed.  The remainder was removed Monday afternoon (shown below).  And now we start the process of replacing the hardscaping.  To me this looks like progress.  The house is no longer surrounded by a shattered driveway, deep clay-filled trenches, and piles of gravel.    The outside work will not be finished by the time I move in.  The house itself is closing in on finishing time, but the yard is just beginning.  I have come to terms with the idea that my five-year plan became a one-year plan.  I may need four years in recovery.

If I had known all this, would I have started this project?  The kitchen appliances were failing and needed to be replaced.  One reason I bought this house was to marry my love an old house with the kitchen of my dreams.  Still, had I known, would I have bought this house?  Probably yes.  I fell in love with this house and I wanted to do this.   I have no one to blame but myself.  That said, there is a big difference between knowing in one's head that things may get out of hand, and actually living through the experience when they do. The entire experience is certainly forcing me to focus far more closely on what is important and what, quite simply, is not.  We'll see where that leads in the long run.

At the same time, exciting things are happening, and I hope the excitement begins to overtakes the overwhelm.   Between the time I started this post and the time I finished, I was once again at the house.  The countertop was installed in the guest bathroom. I love how it is turning out, love how the warm matte black of the soapstone fits with the black cabinet and the Mexican tile.  I love the texture of the stone surface itself, it just calls out to be touched, to be caressed.  I wanted to just stand there and pet it.  I find the tactile appeal of the stone itself, its textured surface, its veins and lines to be very warm and calming.  It may not be the most practical of vanity surfaces, but this is just a guest room, not the main bathroom, so it will not get heavy use.

When I don't have guests, this may just be one of my calm places.  I can stand here, fingers gliding across the sensuous warmth of the stone, looking out the windows on the neighborhood I love, at my neighbors walking their dogs, and let my tensions melt away.

 

 

Sumer is icumen in.......and I am not prepared

ARGHHHHH!

 

That is exactly how I felt yesterday morning.  I settled down.  A period of morning meditation, or at least stillness and deep breathing, helped, as it always does.  I don't necessarily expect profound thoughts, or even necessarily anything akin to medication or prayer on a daily basis, but I do feel that even those mornings  when all I can do is be still and quiet have a profound effect on my equilibrium during the course of the day.

 

But still.  We are getting into crunch time.  In roughly seven  weeks the house will be finished, at least, supposedly, finished enough for me to move in.  In 8 weeks I will be home, fully home.  I need to start packing.  There are still tons of things that need to be decided, chosen, tended to and so forth and so on, and even so, in my head "move-in" remained some amorphous future goal, not yet fully formed, distant and obscure.  Until yesterday morning, when I awoke in a panic.

The kitchen cabinets were (are) being installed.  Having seen them I knew my first choices for pulls and knobs were not going to work and I was jolted awake, filled with nervous, buzzy, vibrant, jittery energy.  I swooped around the web, looking at cabinet hardware, simultaneously worried but oddly calm.  Calm because for the first time, at least in terms of doors and knobs and pulls, I knew exactly what I wanted, knew the feelings that cabinets and their hardware should evoke.  I had vision.  

 

I had been asked to select cabinet hardware a few weeks ago, but at the time there were no cabinets in the rooms, just empty spaces.  Selections and choices had been made but those choices held only an ephemeral place in my thoughts.  Too many choices and decisions had been made but had not yet materialized.  My brain felt simultaneously overflowing and empty.  So my initial choices were made based on an abstract vision.  Some of those initial choices were good, others not so much.  I had a better sense of the library, for example, or the guest bathroom, than the kitchen.  But both of those rooms were evolving steadily, whereas the kitchen remained a blank box, white and empty. And then, with the appearance of cabinets, even standing around like awkward teenagers unsure where they were to go in life, clarity descended like a clichéd vision of clouds opening, and I pulled together a new hardware list.  It is not yet final, there are still a few samples to see on site, and final decisions to made.

 

Bur hardware was not my only source of panic.  Summer seems to have suddenly peeked its head around the corner.  The weather went from cool to hot, at least according to my mind.  I am not a good southerner. 80° is hot; it is my ideal of the perfect (maximum) summer temperature.  Alas, I have never lived somewhere where this was the reality of summer and it may exist only in my imagination.  Come August I will look back and think how pleasant the world was when it was only 80°.  Yesterday morning I pulled out a step-stool and climbed to the top of my closet, pulling own boxes of summer clothes.  Piles materialized as I struggled with questions.  What fits? What doesn't? What can I wear now?   Eventually I found something to wear but my summer wardrobe, with all its unanswered questions, remains, waiting for answers and yet more decisions, in piles around my bedroom.

 

The good news is that I have scheduled the movers.  I need to start packing.  As I shift my closet, my winter things can be packed for the move.  I shan't need them.  Well, I am going to Chicago, so I can keep one or two outfits.  

 

Actually many of my winter clothes are showing substantial wear.  They may not last another season.  I was thinking of making something new, but I see no point in that now, at least not in making cool-weather clothes.  The hot season beckons.  If I make something it will be for wear in this season.  Right now, I simply need to balance my thoughts of making with my thoughts of moving.  My dreams remain in creation mode, imagining art and craft and a world of possibilities, while the reality is that I need to be pulling in and putting away. I am moving into make-do time. I can make things for current use with the materials at hand. Nothing new comes in unless it is specifically needed for the house, but my time really needs to be in preparation, not creation.

 

It is morning again.  I am not in as much of a tizzy as yesterday morning.  I have a plan.  I have boxes, although some of them are still in my car.  If I want to pack the apartment and remain sane, if I want to pack without excessive back pain, I need to start now. I need to work slowly and steadily throughout all the other decisions and activities that are yet to come.  I am not yet quite calm, but I have taken that all-important first step.