5 days and counting...

This is my morning cup of coffee. It is sitting next to the book I'm reading now (The Secret Life of Bees) and a book (Middlesex) that I found at a rummage sale on my way to work at the gallery yesterday. I picked it up because Carol, my old painting professor, insisted that I read it. And so I shall! I love the way that books dance their way into your life at just the right time.

Only thing is that I'm falling behind. This summer has not been the summer of reading that I had hoped for. I wasn't expecting to work much, but it turned out that I ended up working nearly every day. I made my own schedule, so it's my own damn fault--but now I have a stack of books that I am highly reluctant to pack, as though a magic crack will open in the universe and allow me the time to actually do the things I wish I could do in the next 5 days.

I feel myself trying to hurry up and put on the breaks at the same time. I want to get out of here, yet I still feel like there are things I want or need to do. You see, what I'm afraid will happen when I get to Mpls. is that I'll get swept up in a whirlwind of unpacking, job hunting, kid-sitting, and working. Because I have no idea what my job or my life will be like once I leave here, I feel a little vulnerable, like the universe is about to have its way with me. I suppose that could be considered rather exciting (and it is), but there's another part of me that gets nervous about losing the creative life I've so carefully constructed.

I feel a need to make schedules for my days--but schedules, at this point, are nothing less than ridiculous. I wake up and take a few extra turns through the maze of boxes before making my way to the coffee machine. I groggily try to prioritize my day as I wait for the thick brew to wake my brain cells. Pack first, paint later? Paint first, write later, pack when? Pack, pack, pack? This packing project seems like it is stretching out into forever. I feel like I've been writing about it for a month--and I can only imagine how sick you are of reading about it! I suppose packing has morphed into one big metaphor that I haven't quite figured out yet--a cover for something I can't seem to get at. Somehow I've thoroughly disguised myself in newspaper bubble-wrap--and I find it comforting and irritating all at once.

I guess my priority this morning is to sit outside and write in my journal for awhile, to work on sorting out some of the garbage before I continue with the rest of it. Relocating myself, these days, feels haphazard at best. Life is messy and, I suppose, that's ok..............................so I'll leave off by saying:

"Our task is to say holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist..."
~natalie goldberg

HOLY YES!!!

There. I said it.
Although, I admit, it might have been the coffee talking.