The warmth of summer left with you, the departure bittersweetly ushering in my favourite time of year. Welcome to sunny days with cool breeze undertones, thunderstorms and the absence of mosquitoes. Book ending sunburns, suffocating humidity and bug spray with an absolute ease of outdoor life (why would you even go back in? If you have to, why would you even close a single window?). This is the only time you can just show up, as is, without any other considerations. I left the house without my purse yesterday, just a credit card and lip gloss in my dress! For hours! Unbelievable. Is there anywhere that feels like this for longer?
A lady I deeply admire moved in nearly next door and I am so pleased. She has my dream life: curly hair and two babies. Also she worked for Democracy Now (RIGHT?). I am excited to casually fit myself into her days. It is so thrilling when people move back to this town.
My art piece for the group show is terrifying and I’m going to have a hell of a time finishing it up this week. Good luck, future self ❤
I submitted my Artist Statement for the Fundy residency after an entire day of abject misery. Agonizing the overshare. Editing out no less than three puns. I handed it in without fully expressing the generational subtext of the piece and I am dripping with regret.
Seasons and life cycles shift, renewing or removing possibilities, leaving generational knowledge to find alternative means of being preserved and passed on. A simple garden, used in every conceivable way, is cultivated to sustain us. It holds space for hope, fills the waking hours and obscures what cannot grow.
How do I convey and condense the sense of absolute overwhelm evoked from using the gifts my Omama shared with me, skills she assumed would continue to be passed down, as the backbone sustaining me while I try to survive not being able to have children inside of this marriage.
How do I negotiate knowing that I am letting her down. Killing her memory. Denying her existence by ending her legacy.
A couple people I desperately love read and reread my multiple pages and shortened drafts while thoughtfully engaging me on these subjects. When it comes to suggesting edits to my fondness for run on sentences, their best bet would be to travel back to 2004 and accost me on LiveJournal before my intense love of forcing an urgent tone during long winded storytelling became a part of my soul. I have so much gratitude for those rallying around my sorrow. Who knew there’s a version of expressing yourself that deflates you entirely. I rise almost exclusively due to the tenderness of those who love me back so thoroughly. When it comes to warmth, I like to match what is given and then actively kick it up a notch to see where we can get. They’ve totally surpassed me and I so look forward to returning the favour.
Check out this bean to forearm ratio You will be paperYou will be paperYou’ll just go in a vase
I’ve spent the last few days down a Toni Morrison youtube rabbit hole. That shift in perspective helped to get me through the week.
August Playlist The days feels like they’ve slowed down. Summer blossoms have taken their sweet time (only two dahlias are up) while the berries are almost gone. I let the vegetable/herb/tea/dyeing garden go to seed and it is truly wild. The mustard is taller than me! The best part of my day is smiling at those twinkling florets as they brush the hair out of my eyes while I breeze by.
The Fundy residency crew met up again to further develop our exhibit. I’d never say no to a road trip. Seeing and assisting with shaping what others are creating is such a deep and touching honour. I’m slowly settling into things. There’s a gravitas I didn’t invite readily but won’t outright reject. Feeling casually haunted and sitting with it while refusing to look directly at the ghost.
Changing my mind again and again for this gallery submission. Sorting and resorting to all manner of things. My friend has teased me mercilessly for instagramming photos of my blender at work during this paper saga. I smile so big when I think about it.
I strive to show up everyday ready to discuss grey areas with anyone, but I know I am an all or nothing individual. I want cold turkey inductions and painstakingly intentional paths forward. I want to plot a linear route even when there is a fourteen foot bank left by the plow with an absolute promise of a snow-up-to-your-crotch kind of climb. I want the passion, the adventure and the heartache of a direct approach. There will still be nuance, I swear.
I used to think that my inclination towards direct routes were shortcuts and they meant I was lazy. I held shame about it for years, but didn’t really change much about my approach. Now I wonder what’s lazy about clawing yourself out of an inevitable snow hole that’s half as deep as your body just because walking a quarter block extra/around felt like the absurd option. Truly it may be stubbornness more than anything else. I wouldn’t consider scaling the bank if others were along with me (humans: no/dogs: yes). I have a lot more connections to make before I know what I’m actually trying to sort out here. It’s got something to do with being in a training class with mostly strangers for weeks on end while we learn a job I’ve already done (but that time without the training!). Unfortunately I’ve got a lot of time left in this situation to figure it all out. At least when things settle down I’ll get a window seat. Small pleasures.
The original July playlist feels unresolved so I put together another. The summer vibe expands.
Our paper making saga continues! I’m learning more with each sheet and it’s beginning to feel intuitive.
And truly, the garden is giving back in so many ways …
I’m trying to figure out how I could make an actual career out of garden things. What’s really viable in a place with a 3 month growing season? If you need me, I’ll just be over here dreamin.
The house and yard are great and it is a privilege to be on this super stolen land. It’s just … I’m ten months in and it still doesn’t feel like a home – just visiting at best. I’ve painted. I’ve built in shelves. I’ve arranged and rearranged. I’ve dug up literally everything that was possible to dig up and replaced it with a garden perfectly curated to my needs and tastes.
It is the nicest place I’ve ever lived, while growing or grown, there’s no denying that. But when I had thought of myself in my first or forever home, it shared aspects of my childhood houses. Over 100 years old, seasonal shifting (with specific creaks for each one) and constant drafts swiftly made up for by the dry heat of the wood stove. The character, the artistry, the depth and history. I loved joining the fabric of that. Your house as your biggest and life long art project. You opened the door to a meadow with flowering bushes so expansive they felt like they could swallow you whole (the country version of the wardrobe). I get overwhelmed when I consider what I’ve given up to get here. And … where am I.
I’ve been thinking a lot about where I want to be or have wanted to be and the path I’ve taken to get/not get there. It seemed clear for so long. Rural life, greenhouse(s), chickens, three goats named after the Beastie Boys. Early mornings and relaxed sunsets after full days. Children. Community. It’s hard not to question working full time for a giant corporation to afford a (next to) downtown mortgage for just two humans (and an excellent dog).
The path to that dream life held heaps of hurdles, more than I can count or recount. I easily admit to having to have a reactionary or defensive response for many years rather than being able to be deliberate with selected directions. I know that I could be happy almost anywhere I’d land (and that is a skill), but now that I finally have the agency to make real choices and to authentically choose those choices … I feel at a bit of a loss. I guess it makes sense for me to question everything now that I could really do anything. And that my first questions are directed at the job that’s opened up such financial security/possibilities/shackles.
Guess I’ll make some art about it. It’s never the wrong time to celebrate what remains.
I took the weekend off work to attend a willow weaving workshop. I am filled with many regrets but also now have some neat willow stuff so … I guess we might call it even.
Container Garden
The peonies bloomed! Shouldn’t this have fixed everything?
Cutting Garden
I bought a dozen plants, shouldn’t that have fixed everything?
June is a flash of light. All the waiting for nice weather and a garden in full swing has given way to just that, in the blink of an eye, so swiftly that it feels like I’ve missed my morning alarm. I’m grateful but completely thrown.
I must make some big decisions soon about the materials I want to use for my gallery submission after that residency. Mild paralysis mixed with full on dread.
I’ve been fern hunting in Odell while catching the sunrise over that ridge as often as I can convince my lazy morning body to move, with the bug bites that come with experiencing those glories. There are a couple deadfalls where my tiny tent would fit perfectly and there is just enough sunlight peeking through the 200 year old hemlocks for a raised bed of greens to thrive. A flat of chickpea tins and a can opener could really make a home of it all.
Vases by Marina VernI can’t even put dressing on it, I’m too proud.
The health issues dropped on me in February have resolved. It is time for some big steps forward and a guttural full body response to anything trying to drag me back.
