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Restingmotion

  • Monday

    I'm back online and putting my life, or at least my house, back together again.  It seems like my house is part of who I am so I am feeling like this is as much my life as it is just the place I live.   A few things seem obvious now.

     

    I was crazy to decide to switch the sewing room and master bedroom at the same time as I am putting in new floors and redoing the two bedrooms at the other end of the house.  It was twice as much work, or more like three times as much work.  Now pretty much everything we own is piled up in the living room, dining room, and family rooms and it is not a pretty sight.  

     

    At the same time, I still feel that even though every muscle in my body aches, that this was the best time to do all of this because there are no distractions and no one's life except my own is upended by all the chaos.  G has a limited tolerance for chaos, although a higher tolerance than I for everyday mess, so it is good that he is not here.  And given past experience, I also know that if I didn't do it now it would never get done.  I felt suffocated under the weight of too many things left  undone, and this overwhelming urge to do and finish has been very therapeutic. If I was having trouble sleeping when G first went to the hospital and rehab, I am not having that problem now.  I fall into bed exhausted and I awake eager to face another day.

     

    I have too much stuff and some of it has to go, including books, fabric, and yarn.  I believe in having a stash, and in having materials at hand to foment creativity.  But there is too much.  G was not the only one clinging to the past.  And as I have a renewed appreciation for the tenuousness of life, I also realize that I don't want to be faced with having to move this much stuff ever again, that stuff is a burden, and much of it needs to be let go.  Neither G nor I are minimalists, we both tend to collect things we love or that inspire us, and there will always be a wealth of things in our lives.  This too is part of who we are.  We both bristle at being told that we should save less (don't even bother telling me what I don't need) but we have both also realized that we need less. Balance must be found.   I will still be sorting through my things when G returns at the end of the week; we will tackle his closet and his collections together when he returns. 

     

    Oddly, in the midst of all this chaos I am strangely happy and happy with my home, happier than I have been in a long time.  I am eager for G to come home and I hope he likes the changes I have made, but I won't be devastated if he doesn't.  I have done what I had to do to make the house easier for him, and also what I had to do to make the house better for me, and I had put that later part, the "better for me" part aside for far too long.  This house was his long before I was added to the mix and although it has become more ours over the years, it was never a place we created together, a place without its own history, a history more his than mine, and often a reminder of failed expectations and dreams lost.  I admit that I have banished much of the furnishings that dated from that time before me, that harkened back to life with that first family, and that the new furnishings reflect my taste, although I have tried to keep his preferences in mind at every step along the path.  Perhaps it is about time.

     

    I realize that I may not be in this house forever and yet now I am happy here again and could happily stay here for a long time.  This space, that felt like a prison not all that long ago, now feels filled with promise and I hope it will continue to feel this way.  I hope that G's homecoming will be filled with promise as well, that the changes I have made are good, and that he will see the hope and love behind the changes, not just the loss.  And when it becomes time to go, and this will happen because the world is a tenuous place, it will be sad and but also easier because of all the work I have already done.  I realize that we were both trapped by changes that were happening faster than we could adapt to them, and trapped by the weight of memory and expectation.  The weight of our collective past was tying us down both spiritually and physically.    I hope that we are coming to a place where some of that burden has been lifted, and we can shake out the remaining cobwebs and just enjoy what live has to offer.

  • Radio Silence

    Today I have started dismantling the sewing room/office in preparation for moving it and creating a new bedroom/office and separate sewing/fiber room.  As soon as I post this the computer will be taken down for the duration.  Neither room will be finished over the weekend but I do hope to have the computer and my network back up by Monday sometime.

     

    In fact I am feeling a little overwhelmed.  Since moving the books, I have made no further progress with the future caretaker's room and there are still bookcases to be dismantled and my fabric and yarn stash to be moved.  Moved where I don't yet know, but there should be available space created in the reconfiguring of various closets and purging of unused things.  Luckily I do clean out my closets periodically.  The last time G's closet was emptied was 25 years ago, just before we were married.  It is a task I still dread.

     

    Overall though, I am happy with what I am accomplishing.  It is probably more than was absolutely necessary, but the opportunity was here, and I have been too long tied to unfinished projects around the house to settle for put things off again.  I have put my own needs and desires second for far to long as well. I am creating a functional space for G, but also a space for me. As exhausting and daunting as the task may seem at times, I am as happy to be doing things for myself as I am to be ready to welcome my sweetie home.  Hopefully by the time I am reconnected to the world wide web, the heavy work will be done, and I will be able to relax and slow down.  I don't plan to have the new fiber room all together before G comes home, just to have enough order in our space that I can finish up in bits and pieces and still enjoy our time together.

     

     

  • A change in attitude, with chairs

    Life was so different two months ago.  Looking back now, my thoughts at that time seem strange and foreign to me even though I know that of course they were not strange, just different.  The change is not necessarily bad.

     

    On that particular weekend, the one in my thoughts now, G and I went to an exhibition of hand-crafted furniture by the Hudson Valley Furniture Makers.  It was a small show, just the right size, and we were impressed by the quality of the work.  Of course we were pulled to the aesthetic of some craftspeople more than others, and there were two in particular with whom we were determined to follow up.

     

    Picture 26 One of these was Rob Hare, and his dining chairs in particular captured our imaginations.  We had been looking for new dining chairs, off and on, for the past six years, ever since we had taken a spur of the moment detour to Prosperity South Carolina where we wandered into a store called Dixie Heart Pine and left as the proud owners of a new dining table.  

     

    We liked these chairs and we both found them comfortable and aesthetically appealing.  I liked the wood and hoped they would work as a bridge between the modern and traditional aspects of our dining room.  G, who tends to be drawn to glass and steel, was attracted to the wrought steel supports.  We both hoped they would work with our table and we spoke with Mr. Hare about potentially buying some chairs early next year. I was imagining myself in a house filled with beautifully made, hand crafted furniture.

     

    But then, as you know, life changed.  A week later G took a fall that seemed to begin a downward spiral. Two weeks after that he was in the hospital and I was faced with changing everything in our lives.

     

    By the time he we discussed the future and G's needs if he was to come home I realized that I needed to radically change the way we lived in our current house.  I needed furniture and I needed it right away.  I needed chairs that were not too low (our old chairs) and I needed at least one sturdy dining chair with arms.  I thought about those fine chairs briefly, but I realized that I couldn't really wait for a set of chairs to be made, and that fine custom made chairs, when I was contemplating a life with a spouse who had trouble getting around, with caregivers in the house, were out of the question both financially and practically.  I needed something that would work with the house, that I could get right away, and that I would not fret about if it got banged up.  Hopefully I would also find something that I could accept stylistically within the above parameters.

     

    IMG_4228 I went to a furniture store that gaurantees delivery within days.  A store that G would dismiss as "cheap s***".  And I found everything on my list.  In one day I furnished a family room, a dining room (chairs only) and two bedrooms, and I am happy with my choices.  To tell the truth, my elitist self was surprised.  But the other part of me, the part that just wants a room that looks nice and is comfortable was perfectly content.  The part of me that says I just need a house that works, not furniture for the generations, is happier than she has been with the house in a long time. I should let that part of me out a little more often.  And I particularly like my dining room, the one with chairs that match, chairs that look good with the table, chairs that are comfortable.  It is a frivolous thing, this caring about appearances, about just wanting the world to look perfect and perfectly put together, but it is still a valid part of who I am, frivolous or not.

     

    The chairs I chose are not particularly contemporary, but neither is my table.  I learned that contemporary dining sets, at least at this particular store, don't tend to include armchairs, or that if they do, the arms are too low to be useful.   My new furniture might now win any design contest, but it works, and that in and of itself makes me very happy.  

     

    This doesn't mean that I no longer yearn for beautiful hand-crafted things.  There is much on Rob Hare's website that appeals to me, and I am not giving up on my dream of working with him someday.  There is a part of me that wants to live with beautiful furniture, furniture that was made by hand, not churned out in some giant factory, and this part of me lives on.  At some other point in my life such things may be possible again.  I certainly believe so, just as I believe strongly in supporting craftsmanship, in buying and using beautiful things, in taking care and pride in the things we gather, be they precious or commonplace, and in gathering things with thought and care within whatever parameters life sets for us.

     

    ** photo of rob hare's dining chairs courtesy of robhare-furnituremaker.com.

     

     

     

     

  • Knitting again

    IMG_4243 Last night I picked up my knitting for the first time since the Thursday before Thanksgiving.  In all my rush and business and exhaustion I had forgotten how calming it is to knit even a few rows.

     

    And so, after my tasks were done for the day, I sat in a comfortable chair with a cat, a glass of wine and yarn, and I spent some time creating something beautiful just for me.

     

  • Sorting through it all

    It's been over a week since I've posted here, and even more time since I have managed to reply to comments.  I have been a hit-and-run reader of email, and all of your comments have greatly cheered me, even though I may have been too overwhelmed to respond.

    In fact, I have been mostly out of touch with the world at large since before Thanksgiving, caught up as I was in a frenzy of doing.  Then, with family here, and the house full, I was caught up in a different kind of frenzy, one I had sorely missed.    Their presence filled my heart and helped me catch up on a bit of sleep too, allowed me precious time to catch up with myself and make a little peace with my place in the world.  

     

    IMG_4240

    But now the family is gone and most of the biggest items on the "getting" list are in order.  Now I am left with the sorting and moving and reconfiguring of our lives.  In some ways this is the hardest part.  G must move to the smaller room on the other end of the house and his things must move with him.  This will require some sort of elimination and it feels strange to be sorting through his things and thereby the artifacts of his life while he is only a few miles waiting to come home.  Even though I know he will not be able to come up the few steps to get to this room; even though I now realize that his closet had become a source of great stress for  him; even as I realize that he is content with the simplicity of few choices and easy decisions; even as I think of all these things,I feel the responsibility of sorting through the remnants of a life lived and saved and the weight of making the right decisions.

     

    And of course, sorting through G's things are only one part.  My small library will become a small bedroom for a live-in caregiver.  I had help moving the books this past weekend and they are now piled up, almost one thousand strong, on the living room floor where they will sit, one step up from the main level of the house, while new floors go in and G returns home. I am not yet sure of their fate.  Shelves will go back up in other rooms, but that will have to wait for the new year, after all the floors have been installed, but sacrifices will have to be made.   

     

    G struggles with the loss of his view of himself as a man in control of life, a man who goes to work, a man who fixes people, a man who hopes to travel. His life now encompasses a smaller sphere, but still a sphere where there is time spent with loved ones.

     

    I too struggle with changing images of self and yet to some extent the loss of books seems minor in comparison.  But books too are defining.  I have always seen myself as a person who has a library, who loves books, who collects books that I have read, that mean something to me and who also collects books I have not read, books full of the promise of worlds unexplored, of knowledge not yet gained. But books are not everything; I am just not yet sure of the balance point. 

     

    The decisions seem overwhelming at times and at other times simple.  Perhaps being a person who over-thinks everything is not always an advantage. The days are short, the nights are long, the decisions are hard.  And yet the destination is clear, it is just the path that remains somewhat hidden in fog.

     

  • Planters in Winter

    IMG_4223 It was finally time to turn my attention to the planters this past weekend.  The remains of summer greenery needed to be cleared, pots needed to be cleaned and stored, and those pots which remain outside year-round needed their seasonal greenery.

     

    In seasons past I would run around to several nurseries to find just what I wanted, and I would usually do it slightly earlier in the season, while there was still a larger selection, although after the end of season sales had begun.  

     

    This year I was late and short of time so only went to one nursery, where I contented myself with what was available.  Usually I am looking for height in the tall clay planters by the front door, but the options were limited.  Surprisingly, I found some very nice dwarf hinoki cypresses which I thought would work in combination with winterberry branches. I hoped to put two cypress in each pot, but they were too large, so one will have to do.  The pots feel a little sparse, but I do think they will be lovely when the snow falls.

    IMG_4226 More hinoki cypress and some arborvitae have taken up residence down by the garage in the large zinc planters.  These had been pulled out decoratively for the summerl, but of course in the winter they are dangerously close to the driveway where they could be crushed by the plows, so they have been pushed back against the safety of the wall.  

     

    All of these planters have deep gouges and crush marks where they have met with plows past and this winter may be their last, as the bottoms are falling out of two planters now.

     

    Luckily I also found some fabulous, very architectural looking, black planters made of a durable polyester resin that I believe will be fabulous with the house and landscaping.  Perusing the sizes and shapes available already has my mind spinning with ideas for the next season.

     

     

     

     

     

  • A trip to the movies

    Somewhere around mid to late afternoon yesterday I became totally overwhelmed  with matters of insurance and costs, and all of the details and decisions that have to be made.  I really wanted to just go to bed and pull the covers over my head and hope the world would go away, but it didn't really work that way.  My head wouldn't stop spinning and I couldn't relax and yet I couldn't make any decisions either.

     

    Instead of going to bed I went to see Red.  And I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It is not a great movie.  The plot is somewhat weak, and the whole thing is incredibly far fetched, unrealistic an silly as all get out, and it is precisely this that makes it so much fun.  And it was fun.  It was laugh out loud silly fun and it had a happy ending.  What more could I ask for?  Well, there was a fabulous cast, who may not have had the "best" roles of their lives, but who were obviously allowed to just have some fun and they were marvelous.  Bruce Willis underplays the role with just enough sardonic wit to really make it work and his character is both likable and threatening all at once.  Helen Mirren manages to be elegantly calm and utterly collected while at the same time using heavy artillery with almost childish glee  John Malkovitch is just perfectly insane as only John Malkovitch can be, and  Mary Louise Parker is pitch perfect as the incredulous girl who gets sucked into this maelstrom.

    It was a funny, zany, escapist flick, and exactly what I needed.

  • Planning: Full of Promise and yet Bittersweet

    Yesterday I took a little slice of time and played around with graph paper.

     

    I was planning my new studio.  It sounds frivolous considering how little sewing I've done.  I haven't done all that much knitting in the last week either, I think about 6 to 8 rows in 4 days. But of course I will sew and knit again.

     

    Much of the past week has been spent coming to terms with the fact that my house will never be the same again and thinking about how best to accommodate the future.  Oh, I am planning for G to come home, and it appears he will be coming home far sooner than previously anticipated.  And although I want him to come home, I also know that home will never be the same.  I am advised that he will come home with a walker, possibly a back-up wheelchair, and very likely 24 hour care, and at least night-time care.    This means he will be confined to the main part of the house, that he will not be coming up the roughly quarter-flight to the master bedroom, that he will sleep in his own room with an aide or "sitter" on hand.  I don't think he realizes this yet.  I don't think my body and my soul have quite come to terms with this yet either, although my intellect is weighing the options and calculating the potential outcomes.

     

    During the time G was in the hospital and now, at the rehab place, dealing with all the uncertainty has forced me to readjust to the house, to come to terms with it differently than before.  The house seems so different from what it was but a few weeks ago.  At first, I could only spend the evenings in the kitchen and the bedroom even though I could not sleep.  Now I have reacquainted myself with the house and I have thought extensively about what changes needed to be made to make the house work for G when he comes home.  And even though he is making great progress and will be ready to be home before I will have everything in place, he will still not be coming up the stairs and we will still have separate rooms.

     

    Which still leaves me with a space that was once our space and which will now, by necessity, be my space alone.  Night-time is the hardest.  Our bed is no longer ours and it is haunted by his absence.  It is quite possible that in order to cope with change I will have to take what was ours and make something separate, something which is mine.

     

    And this is how I found myself with occupied with a tape measure and some graph paper making plans.  My sewing room is in a bedroom right next to the master bedroom.  It is is small 9.5 x 10 feet, although it is not the smallest "bedroom" in the house, it is the second-smallest.  It will become my bedroom and the larger room, the room that was the master will become my new sewing space.  It is larger, at 13 x 16 it is the largest private room in the house, the largest room that can be closed off from the rest by means of a door.  All the public rooms are open to one another.  It will be my new sewing space, and even though it is slightly more than twice the size of my current space, it will be fairly full, but I think a very workable space.  

     

    The seeds have been planted for this new space, but it is not my first priority, not yet.  I still need to prepare for G's return; I need figure out exactly what will happen, and when.  Perhaps I am still clinging to the hope that the guest room can become our room and not just G's room.  I do realize that this may be a futile dream, but I am not quite ready to surrender. I also realize that regardless of what happens I will need to create a different space for myself, a space that is a new space, not a space haunted by memories.  But I am not ready to embrace that space quite yet, just to acknowledge that it is coming.

  • So Long, Farewell…..

    Yesterday I took the first step in the seasonal sorting of the closets.

     

    IMG_4213 There were two casualties:

     

    The two skirts I made this summer are now too large, enough too large that they look sloppy and dowdy and do not stay in place.  I can tie the sash tighter on the blue skirt, but doing so does not make it more attractive.

     

    It is somewhat more difficult to give up things I have made, as opposed to things I have purchased. But I made myself promise that I would not hold on to them, that I would make them and wear them as much as possible, not hiding them in the closet, and willingly give them up when the time came.  And so I did make them.  And I did wear them frequently.  And now it is time to part. It is true that for a moment I paused, thinking they would be easy enough to alter, but then I stopped myself. There will always be something new, no need to cry over clothes that have had their day.  

     

    If you missed them, the blue skirt was here. and the rose-print skirt was here.

     

    There are two skirts which need minor alterations and are in the "wait-and-see" pile where there fate will be determined after I finish the entire closet purge.

     

    Picture 24 This leaves three skirts, which is not a bad number from a purely functional standpoint.  

     

    There are two black pencil skirts much like this one (photo courtesy of Nordstrom.com).  They are both St. John Santana Knit skirts.  One is the length shown on the model, the other is slightly longer, hitting just at the bottom of the kneecap.  This particular pencil skirt is something I consider a basic, and I have kept one in my closet for many many years.  They get frequent wear, never bag out, and last forever.

     

    At the moment, with my more casual lifestyle the short skirt is seeing the most wear, but the longer one is more dressy, and yes, more conservative.    There may yet be times in my life when I wish to wear it though, so I have kept both. 

     

    IMG_4220 The other skirt is less versatile and is also a skirt I posted on the sewing blog years ago.  I still have it.  It still looks good, or perhaps more exactly, it looks good again.  It is a heavier wool skirt by Day Birger et Mikkelsen.  I wish it would be cold enough to wear it for Thanksgiving, but that may be iffy; it will work for Christmas dinner as well.

     

  • Late-Blooming Beauty

    IMG_4211 I haven't managed to clean out and replant the long flower bed at the end of my driveway yet this season and now I have a reward for my procrastination.  A single iris has thrown up a third bloom (these irises typically bloom in May/June and again in September).  It is a bright spot of joy amidst all the brown dying foliage.

     

    There are three more buds on this stalk and as I plan to work in this flower bed this weekend, I shall simply have to work around it and save this small section for later, or next spring.