Nov. 28, 2022, 11:18 a.m.
A place for arriving
The marvel of waiting for the paint to dry
Monday Monday
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As I sift through my house and my new routines that look like my old routines I find myself being incredibly impatient. I want the cabinets to already be the color I picked out, but I also am looking forward to the slow process of removing each door.
I want to know what the counters will look like but I don’t want to tear them off by myself but I also don’t want to wait for someone else’s timeline. My dresser will get here Wednesday but waiting for it feels like a slow hell while my clothes stay in a weird pile on the floor and I tell a story that I am indeed a chaotic tornado person and don’t know how to put my clothes away.
The story burns brighter when there is no place to put the clothes yet the inner critic is like - see you don’t even have the thing to put the things in you stupid stupid head.
I remember that home is the meadow and home is the shore and home is the shape we make with each other, not the shape we make in Aisle 25 of Home Depot
A few nights ago three different friends asked if they could stay over and they pulled into the driveway all at the exact same time and in that moment I knew exactly why I bought this house. To have and to hold. To host and to watch the people arrive. One at a time. To cook together and laugh and roll around on the ground. Two extra bedrooms and a blow up mattress in the family room nook.
To love this place as it is is my only hope. To rest easy in paint swatches and my one million socks in two million corners. I broke a piece of the wood trim on the floor and said sorry to it. Postal Pete leaves the packages at my front door and waves as he goes down the driveway.
The wood stove has a few quirks and I think - do I just learn to use it with the quirks or do I call someone to ask if they can look at the quirks. You have to wait a little bit of time between flushes the tank fills slow. The knobs turn towards each other for the shower and there is plenty of hot water for a few in a row.
Vince at the hardware store told me about when he bought his house on the lake for $7000 (aprok $56k today) and I thought wow things are different now. He had me put the dates for the 2023 polka fest in my google cal so I wouldn’t forget. I asked for a sledge hammer and instead he gave me a piece of scrap wood and told me to use it with my regular hammer.
I pray to be a bit more present with the shapes that are emerging. As I was hosting show and tell yesterday for A Quilt is Something Human it occurred to me in real time that my house is the shape of a quilt. A one story rectangle with two strips on the top and bottom, a few squares on one side, and a few squares in the middle. A circle and a diagonal line.
This place is where my most abundant relationships come to stay and to rest. Friendships decades in the works, with a trust so unshakeable, come here to stay. To arrive together. I stretch out from my bedroom to Elisabeth exclaiming - we all did our morning pages together already. To watch Ellen build the fire this morning. Sam’s generosity of holding the hard things while she folds the sheets.
To witness the bustle of love and expansion in this quilt shaped house, the marvel of waiting for the paint to dry, there is no better in between than this.
Photos from the end of Bohemian Road with Ellen Rutt
Elisabeth Pixley-Fink is making a new album, Heartskin, and I would love to have you join me in backing it on their kickstarter
Photo by John Hanson The most beautiful plant oracle deck Dirt Gems is 30% off code LOVEFRIDAY30
I promise to never make a reel, this article is my favorite thing
This time last year, same feeling today
New Episode of Yes Yes my monthly advice column + podcast
The sound filling the house this morning
FREE this Thursday, Dec 1, 2022 6:00 pm — 8:45 pm at The Grand Rapids Art Museum : Join the GRAM Visionnaires for a presentation and discussion led by Grand Rapids Media Initiative and Film Incubator on their documentary adaptation of Todd Robinson’s book A City Within a City: The Black Freedom Struggle in Grand Rapids, MI
Morning Pages are a great place to put your feelings never forget it doesn’t all need to be public
I loved this episode of Bewildered - Martha Beck and Rowan Mangan’s podcast - with Elizabeth Gilbert - lots and lots of permission to have five friends and hole up for the winter, devotion to self, and cutting out the people who don't respect your no
You are a lone reed, standing tall, waving boldly, in the corrupt sands of commerce - You’ve Got Mail
A portion of November’s paid subscriptions goes towards the The Mishigamiing Journalism Project - which provides support for Indigenous people to report, consult, and train in the Traverse City Record-Eagle newsroom
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