The 2nd of February, 2016.

I am going to write. I wrote.  I deleted the two paragraphs. Garbage…. I analyze the photos from these past weeks, each showing on a particular day what I thought would be the inspiration.  Each day I thought I would set aside time because I had finally captured the wittiness of a comparison between pink nail polish and “being in the pink” of mental health or contrasting it with the “in the black” of successful business finances.

But the mental challenge of matching laundered socks won out.

Or it wore me out.

I am not quite sure.

I

I call it “Waiting”, but it is not me waiting, it is what is waiting for me. I return home each weekday which is really ‘each weeknight’ to my lit tree.  Funky. Imperfect. Cheery. And every night I feel happily blessed to return back to my little home in the woods, all the while marveling at the wonder of a home which only until now, after twenty years, am I really feeling at home.  How can a person live in one spot for all that time, yet never feel like it was your nest?

Until now.

My home is a strange combination of grandiose “it-will-never-happen-in-a-hundred-years” type plans to the nagging voice in my head which reminds me that sometime soon I better at least dump out the sludge of old coffee cups which clutter the basement garage.  But somewhere in between lies the life I actually lead.  My alone time is really my time to bounce off the walls a bit.  Odd thing to need, isn’t it?  I need time to flutter around – exactly like the butterfly metaphor at which I am grasping.

Or gasping.  I could be ‘gasp’ – writing!

For weeks I putz with Christmas decorations I actually displayed this year, gathering them up for their hibernation into the storage closet under the steps.  As I re-box them, a ribbon or ornament might remind me of a similar object from a pile in the garage…a pile which lasted a whole year, stacked during the separation of holiday decorations which immediately followed last year’s holiday.  That stack, was the ‘mine’ of the two.  I could not and would not touch it until now.  Flutter, flutter…

A sign created for me by a friend’s teenage daughter which now is placed upon my refrigerator reminding me that “we are not alone”….I think it’s true message is the reminder to smile, laugh and to exist as the outrageous beings we are.

I call it “the greatest of these..” I do not know about the creative, artistic process, but as I was stapling the lights to the plywood doors I kept the mental picture of a perfect holiday heart in my head knowing full-well that it looked no where near my imagination.  Yet I walked away from it for that first critical eyeful.  Nervous and scared and quickly calculating how much time the re-do would take me if my first impression was disgust, I turned, delighted at its imperfection….

I just wanted a shiny, happy red heart in preparation for the first blizzard….

Nailed it.

Love and Blessings,

~Stephanie