cacoon

Isn't this painting of Max beautiful? My sister Sheila painted it. She captured his sweet sleeping face perfectly! Seeing this portrait really inspires me to finish organizing the studio (a job I started yesterday....) and get my paints out. Right now there are boxes of junk piled in the middle of the floor, pulled from dark closets and under dusty shelves. I love working in a beautiful space, with tools in easy reach, reference material close by and clutter at a minimum. Unfortunately, this blissful area lasts for a couple of weeks before it looks like a gang of kids ransacked it. My hope is that I get it in perfect order before my buddy Jessica arrives Friday. I have big plans for us and they don't include cleaning. Mostly, we make plans for projects and think of delicious food to make, then forget to eat, resulting in low blood sugar, forcing us to eat what's fast (crackers) then we start all over. Eventually we take a break from laughing to do something useful. I can't wait till she gets here.

All this space clearing has unearthed all manner of relics from my old life. I have a block of time after college that I spent floundering around, working too many jobs, aimless yet ambitious, trying to figure out if I was happy or not (which is a sure sign that one is not). I found ways to justify the importance of staring out the window for hours, watching sunlight move across the lawn. I think of this gray period and I'm hit with a mixture of relief and fear, thankful its over but afraid it could come back. I suppose that's the price of happiness, the knowledge that its brief, that it could be snatched away. I look at the portrait of my baby and think how fast they grow, too soon he will be grown with his own life. So I will gather another pile of remnants from the murky past, hoping I get it all this time.