It's the day before my two-day Open Studio. I've been up two hours already, and spent an hour folding the laundry my kids "overlooked", reading a book and cleaning the stove. Why clean the stove? I dunno. I'm not going to be using it this weekend, except to heat cider....
The impending date did it's trick, panic cleaning mode was established, and now the studio is 85% ready for guests. And true to my promotion, it's not totally clean. Just a lot neater. Although my jewelry-making area is totally messy, just not so many layers on top.
I'm ready to set stuff out, price and label. Took an hour late last night to repackage some simple pearl necklace kits I made up years ago, when I'd make just about anything to make a few more bucks for my biz. They look pretty cool now, and I had a lot of fun.
This doesn't sound too focused, does it? Well, it never is. Some side journeys were made along the way.
One side journey: While clearing out book shelves, I found the journal I kept when my teen daughter was born. Without looking at it, I gave it to her. She spent the afternoon reading it. She's been a heckuva lot nicer to her dad since then (he definitely noticed), and a bit happier in general.
I picked up the journal today to see what I'd written 16 years ago. That was the book I read this morning. Oh my. Simply a chronicle of the almost unbearable love and joy we experienced when this little girl entered our life. I cried. I could blame it on hormones, but why would I want to deconstruct the moment?
Another side journey...A phone call last night to an old friend, just for a few minutes to say, "I'm busy, but I'm thinking of you." She reminded me my press releases and postcard mailing had cheerfully promised "authentic artistic mess" and I shouldn't compromise that. She recommended tiny paper cups for children to feed Cheerios to all our pets. (Every person in this house with feathers and fur LOVES Cheerios.) A reminder of the power of friendship.
A major side journey...The bunnies almost drove me to suicide a few weeks ago. I knew they'd been chewing and making nests (we discovered the newest bunny was pregnant two weeks after we brought her home) but hadn't realized how extensive the damage was. Bunster, the older, more settled rabbit, was humiliated to be booted out of the studio for the next two weeks, when it was obviously her younger, upstart companion who was to blame. I cried when I found Bubble had chewed through my sewing machine cords a second time, and she demolished my iron cord, too. (The mystery here is, how do rabbits chew through live power cords and not receive, um...."negative reinforcement"...?)
But there are blessings in all this mess. I realized I was holding on to far too many "projects", seeing the potential in way too many piles of stuff. The bunny-chewing fiasco was a wake-up call. "Clear it out NOW," the universe seemed to be saying, "before a fire takes it out!" (You can click on the title for a forum discussion about the unforeseen benefit of losing your studio...) I was reminded of my mother's threat when my teen-disaster-state room reached her limit. "Clean it NOW, or I'll clean it FOR you!" I moved a lot of "potential" out of the studio this week, and plan to move on even more in the weeks ahead.
So here I am. My only big worry is that my teen son will worry that, because there is no journal for him, he was not as hugely anticipated and welcomed. My husband suggests I plant a faux journal, but Doug is too smart for that. He'd figure it out. Maybe someday, when he is a father, he'll realize that journals get harder to keep when there are TWO babies to care for. Til then, I can only hope he can see it in the things I do every day for him that show how loved he is.
The Open Studio will be wonderful no matter how "ready" it is tomorrow. Why? Because I will be surrounded by all the things I love: My family, my work, my pets, my friends, my art patrons, my workspace, my home. I feel blessed.
This is what I love about my Open Studio. It's the process I go through BEFORE where I grow the most, as an artist, as a person, as a mother, as a friend.
