Springing into a new life

WARNING: This post is a little out of my norm - it's a reflection and meant to be a release for me. And it's a little long. So pour a glass of whatever you enjoy, and if you make it to the end, thank you.

Every spring, correction: every change of season, I get this little itch inside me for change, for newness, for life. It creeps up and crawls all over my insides making me want to break out of every restraint I have around my life.

I want beauty
I want life
I want freedom
I want soul

As Maroon 5 played over the satellite music station at the salon today and I made hair color and waxing appointments for grouchy Seattlites, I longingly looked outside and thought of my Dahlia bulbs that needed planting and the cute, colorful!! (we were all black at work...it's very hard to wear all black all the time) spring outfits that needed to be found and strutted about.

I thought about my friends, scattered all over the west coast: what they were writing, painting, building, reading, and how they were nurturing their souls and building character. And how cute they all looked doing it (Side note: this is the amazing thing about my network of friends - they look cute doing just about EVERYTHING. It gets to be rather annoying...just kidding, friends, you are the color in my photos, and the lace on my dress). And I began to feel myself become a little jealous. Thinking how much I've neglected this little blog that was started to inspire me, you, and be a creative outlet for me and how I missed it yet didn't have the energy to put into it or much of anything lately. Thinking how I've not been the friend or the wife I want to be.

And then I stopped myself. What's keeping me from doing that now? Even while working? I've thought for so long that I needed to go seriously part time or quit my day job to pursue myself and discover my soul more. But why can't I do it while working? Am I just using that as an excuse for not pursuing my passions and dedicating time to that? Part of it is that as we get older and think about bringing other little people into the world, I think about all the free time I won't have very soon, and the other part of it is that even though I don't work a full time job, there are a lot of other responsibilities on my plate with Jason traveling a lot and keeping up with the house, the dog, the groceries, the etc... And yes, it would be easier if I didn't have a job and that's what I really want. But maybe easier isn't what I need.

For the last two years or so I've been wanting to discover myself - to "arrive" at some point of knowing what goes on inside. And I'm not necessarily talking about counseling or therapy (which yes, I know would be a good thing to do as well). But maybe, hopefully, I've been doing that all along. Maybe, just maybe, in the piles of dishes, piles of dog hair and poop, in the nights alone and the tears, I've chiseled away just a little bit more of my shell and found a new part of me. And even though I don't necessarily have the journal entries, the paintings, the books put up to collect dust on my shelves, I have laugh lines, tear stains, plants that I've watched grow in, bottles (and bottles, and bottles!!) of wine in the recycling that have been drunk with friends.

So this spring, while life is emerging all around me, I will try and put to rest my desire to be the person I'm not, and embrace the person I am. I have to stop waiting for life to happen to me and make my life what I want it to be. Even if it doesn't look exactly like I thought it would.

Devonly,

Yours

As the saying goes, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade, right? Well, today when life gave me the wrong kind of solder that wasn't working on my long awaited jewelry project, I made chocolate chip cookies. That's what I love about cooking and baking - I know exactly what to do and most likely I have all the tools and ingredients already here. And if I don't, there are a million places I could find them within minutes from my front door. I don't have to order anything online that takes weeks to arrive. Thus, the great difference between cooking and silversmithing. Anyways, the dough is setting in the fridge, so I can't yet attest to their wonderfulness, but let's just say that both Harley and I are licking up any crumbs of dough that has splattered around the kitchen. In the raw, the dough is so good! I'm sure the cookies will be jut as divine.

Onto another note: You'll have to forgive me for being absent for (eek-gads!) months! I didn't really intend to take such a break, but here it is February and my last post was about using up Thanksgiving Day left-overs. I haven't been terribly busy per se - I mean, beyond the normal state of steady chaos that my life runs at - I just have been floundering at life. I have this terrible habit of finally being comfortable at one place in my life and then having a mini-crisis of sorts where I feel like I'm not doing what I should and quickly I'm planning my next greatest endeavor in life. My soul begins to scratch at my insides and won't let me rest until I'm well underway in investigating what it wants and doing some serious soul searching.

So, what does that next thing look like for me? Well, I don't really know yet. I know it involves dedicating more time to art and hopefully jewelry. (For christmas, Jason set my studio up and just today I was attempting to make my first piece. However, there are a lot of tools and supplies needed for one simple item, and it's very frustrating to do anything without them all. So, needless to say, I wish I had something to show you, but it would all look like scraps and random bits of things. Hopefully I will have something to share soon though!) Anyways...oh, yes - art and jewelry. I never have allowed myself scheduled time to pursue art the way I have always wanted to, and I think that is what my insides are telling me this time. And perhaps (hopefully!) this next step also involves some major veggies and chickens...but more to come on that later! So I hope to be doing some postings of a little different sort coming up soon and I hope that you'll enjoy them as much as I will!

Until next time,

Devonly,

Yours