OH geez
It's actually been years since I've been here and million miles.
I'd like to start blogging again, this time more as a personal artistic journal than a networking tool as this blog has been for me in the past.... but who knows I could learn to appreciate feedback again. I can't imagine that now, but maybe.
I'm reminded of something that my friend Ginny told me while I was going through my divorce.. She said that it would be like a tornado. It would spin me around and around and when it cleared, that I would look around and be in another place.
I feel very much like I'm in another place. I am literally. So many other things have happened in the years since I've been here too.
On the place topic. I moved away and back again, just landing in the house next door to the house I own with my ex-husband. It's kinda weird, but it's the best thing. I did pick out this neighborhood and establish a network of friends for my kids here. The universe handed me a giant old house with giant old drafty windows and bats in the attic and a big yard full of mature fruit trees. That was a year ago next week. It's the farm that I was looking for, just placed in a small sidewalked town instead of the big sprawling farm that had run through my mind all the time scaring the crap out of single-working my ass off momma me. To me, this house is huge....but it's mine to care for and I hope that I do a good job.
Once I left my old life, crazy things happened. I moved the kids in with my mom and stepfather. My stepfather died a traumatic death. The ways of dying in this state, country, society are traumatic to me and they were to my stepfather. I totally understand his reasoning and I'll go out the same way one day... That is unless the medical system changes by then.
Then a little over 2 months later, work burned down. My brother's business that I help run... burned up-- like completely burned up. I spent hurricane Sandy in a burnt out soggy wet, charred, building waiting on insurance inspectors. Those first weeks were so hard, I was so exhausted and had been breathing so many nasty fumes and sat so cold and wet in that nasty building that I passed out more than once.... it was probably just 2 or 3 occasions, but man... I would just find myself slammed down on the ground and crawling around, tunnel vision, just pushing to get up, saying I'm fine to fall over again. I cried, telling myself and Greg that I didn't know how to build a factory, I didn't know how to deal with insurance claims and demo and loss of income reports and buy equipment and employees-- what the hell were we going to do? They said that the refrigerator was faulty.. someone's hand me down, shop fridge that we had. It worked at lunchtime. That was 2 years ago last month.
Upon their father's death, my step sister's decided to come into the family. They had really decided to not take part in our lives for years prior. My one sister moved into the house with Mom, the girls and I. It was really hard for all of us. I'm trying to heal from it.
I've spent the last 3 years getting to know a wonderful man named Greg. I don't know how I was so lucky to cross paths with him, but I now hear that OK Cupid was playing with the data and messing with people's minds. Anyway- somehow it's working out for us.
So the last years have been really educational for me. Things aren't as important anymore. I worry about my kids and my momma and my brother.
I don't know that life is easy enough to mush around in the clay yet, but I think that I would like to try to relearn it. It should be pretty clumsy. I can't even remember my kiln firing schedules that I thought so important to making things look just the way that I liked. I'm sure my glazes are trash and I'm going to have to dig out my kiln from a garage full of mine and my sister's households worth of moving boxes. But whatever... Greg was recently trying to remind me that I like making things....not just making factories and functional things..... saying things like" you can't see the look on your face while you are working on the wheel"
I've been saying that I don't miss it. I don't like the selling and I think of the Lorax as I bring more "stuff" into the world. I actually had refused to sell things for quite a while... I would only give things away to those who seemed to really enjoy them.
So-This is a letter to you, Kristie, to look back on- journal entry 1 after a 2.5 year or so break. I wonder how you will feel about this blog, or sharing art a year from now. Time will tell.
