Unfinished

Unfinished is o.k. That's what I've been thinking about today.

Life is the journey TOWARD my authentic life, not the destination. I build my handmade life forgetting that life is IN the building and that there will likely never be a day when I sit back and say, "I have completed my nest," or, "my sacred space is finished."

My Nest

It's been awhile since I posted last. Lots has happened in the interim. And I do mean A LOT. Hard things. Good things. Sad things. Exciting things. Things are changing. Things are beginning. Things are dying. Things are being birthed.

And I'm making my nest. In some ways I am making one for the first time in my life. The image of a "nest" has been with me for almost exactly a year now. It has come to represent everything that I need and want in my life. It is a personal nest and it is one that I alone can build for myself. Each twig is something I have picked for myself because I know that it is something that I want and need to form my nest. The purpose of my nest is to support, shelter and nurture myself. And my babies. For me that nest needs to provide:

• Health
• Security
• Safety
• Wholeness
• Sustenance
• A place to grow things
• Peace
• Creativity
• Sacred space

The interesting thing about a "personal nest," as I have dubbed these nests we build for ourselves (and our children) is that when we make a list of what we need and want in that nest, there can not be another human being's name on that list. If so, it isn't a strong nest.

Anything that is part of my personal nest being strong and supportive that means someone else has to behave a certain way or make me feel a certain way is just not going to work. If someone else is a piece of the foundation of my personal nest, the entire nest is compromised. I can not truly be authentic. My security and safety becomes linked to a certain person behaving a certain way, doing certain things, making me feel certain ways, etc. and therefore I have to do x, y and z to keep that part of my nest intact.

I think we DO, however, build "relationship nests" with other people. We co-create these relationship nests in a way that works for both people in the relationship. The error I have made in the past, over and over, was neglecting to build a "personal nest," first and foremost, and instead trying to make a "relationship nest" INTO my personal nest. And that is the fastest way for a relationship nest to fall apart. And when it does, if I did not have my own personal nest intact, I am nestless.

I don't know how to co-create relationship nests well. I am learning. But right now, in this season of my life, my focus is on creating my own PERSONAL NEST, first and foremost. And I'm doing it. Slowly but surely. Day by day. And it's incredible. The twigs and moss and other elements that I know I need and want in my nest are showing up in my path. I literally just have to bend and pick them up.

About a year ago I went to an "Art for Healing" class in Bakersfield. We made a collage in the class. The task was simple: collage what you want to manifest in your life. I didn't have a plan when I started going through magazines looking for things that caught my eye. I just started cutting. And before long what I had in front of me was something incredible: My Nest. I had collaged my personal nest. The nest I wanted but did not yet have. Here's the finished collage:

A year later I am stunned and delighted to see that I am creating my own little nest that has everything in that collage, either intact or in process. I am on my way to taking care of myself and my "chicks," as my friend, Wendy, would say. I am in the process of finding a "community." There are red chinese lanterns, a studio in my dining room, candles, a backyard that I am excited to create into sacred space, photos everywhere and even a truly "magic occupancy" of my new nest.

The way I got here is not how I would have planned it. There has been and is so much heartache on the road that I traveled to get here. I wish I could heal the hearts of those I've hurt. But I KNOW, with everything in me, that the only thing for me to do right now is to be 100%, unequivocally, unhesitatingly honest and authentic. That means I say I'm sorry to those I've hurt. It means I tell the truth about my feelings. It means I say what I want and need. It means I take responsibility for my own happiness and healing. It means I follow my heart today, tomorrow and every day from now on.

I'm excited. I feel peace like I never have. I have no idea what the future holds. I am not afraid.

AND

I'm lonely sometimes. I wonder how I got here. If there was another way. I mourn the losses of what was. I feel remorse for the pain I've caused others. I wonder why I couldn't have gotten HERE another way.

AND

I am here now. I don't have to do, be, feel, believe or think anything. There is no relationship nest that I must keep intact in order to feel taken care of, provided for, safe and secure. I had no idea how much of my almost constant anxiety was connected to my lack of a personal nest. I didn't know I could feel so much peace. So much hope. I didn't REALLY understand Julian of Norwich's "All will be well, and all manner of things will be well" until now. I get it. I do. I have never felt so "well."

I have no clue what tomorrow will bring. I don't even know what I will do with the rest of today. I know it will involve reading, eating healthy food, relaxing (I already ran today), writing a little, watching a movie perhaps, watering the grass, sitting outdoors with a glass of wine once it cools off, chatting with friends on the phone, and continuing to, little by little make my little nest more and more of a "home." And that's enough.

  

Last Day in the Bushes

I've lived so much of my life
In these fucking bushes.

Until today.
That's it.
I'm done.

I had carved a little home here,
Between branches,
On the earth,
Where I could do the necessitites:
Breathe
Sleep
Eat.

It has been
Small,
Itchy,
Dirty,
And either
Too warm or too cold at night.
But it's a safe home,
I've told myself,
As I picked the dry leaves out of my hair.
Year after year after year after YEAR.

There was a look-out spot.
A hole in the bushes I made
Through which I peered out,
Looking for
What I've always most wanted to see.

I dreamt about it.
Wrote about it.
Talked about it.
Thought about it.
Cried about it.
Hoped about it.
Asked for it.
CRAVED IT.
My eyes ached
From looking so hard and long
For
It.

Yes: IT.
I have just been sure
That one day I would look through
That cut-out window
Of my home in the bushes
And see...
It.
Standing there in the clearing,
At the half-way point,
Waiting for me,
Looking for me,
Perhaps calling my name.

Cheryl...I'm here.
I'm here, Cheryl.
Cheryl...I'm here.
I'm sorry it took so long, darlin'.
Cheryl ("Dear One"),
I'm sorry it took so long.
But I'm here now.
Come on out, sweetheart girl.
Come on out, my little one.
Come on out, precious woman.

It
is of course
Love.

Then
(I told myself),
When I see Love/IT,
And when I hear my named called,
It will be safe to leave my home here
In the bushes
And rush
RUSH
RUSH
Into Love's arms.

I already know how it will smell,
I told myself.
How it will taste,
How my cheek will feel against its chest,
And just exactly exactly exactly
How it will pull me closer closer closer
Than I've ever been to anyone ever ever ever.
The peace oh the peace oh the peace that would fill me then.

Thirty four fucking years.
That's a long time.
That's fucking half a fucking life.
That's fucking a damn fucking long time to be fucking waiting.

So today I realized
I'm done.
Or really I've been realizing
I've been done
For awhile now.

But TODAY is the day
I weave letters and commas and periods
Together
Into
My Doneness.
This is the day I sew Doneness
To Doneness
To Doneness
Into
Intention.
I run the needle through and through and through
All the layers of Doneness
And pull the thread tight, tight, tighter.
Knot it off with a firm tug.
Cut the thread.
Sit back and let needle and scissors fall to the ground.
My Intention on my lap,
Complete.

Can I borrow your bush knife, Mantuya
(My lovely Papua New Guinean friend
Who used to pick beetle larvae
From our yard with bare fingers
To sell at market and
To feed her children)?
Can I borrow your bush knife that stands
Sharpened
In the trunk of the banana tree?
I need it to hack this bush up.
Gonna hack it the fuck up.

Then I am going to pull what's left
Of this bush home
This fucking safe bush home
Up by the roots.
I'm leaving nothing but hard ground here.
Nothing more.
No one will know there were bushes here
Watered by tears, or
That someone spent half her life here, or
That the bare ground was a home.

And then I'm going to stride,
Mantuya's bush knife in hand,
(Because I have nothing else left to hold)
To the clearing.
I'm going to find the spot I watched.
I'm going to find that
Halfway Point,
That place I hoped It/Love would appear,
And I am going to stand there.
I'm going to lay that bush knife down
And breathe one long breath in,
And then breathe it back out.

Pause. One more long breath now, in and out.

With that air in my lungs,
I will look at all the bushes around me,
And I will feel millions of eyes
Peering out at me from behind
So many bushes.
More bushes than I can count.
I might wave a little wave and then laugh
Because look at me!
I'm standing here!
Hoooooo-weeeee....never that I'd be here!
That's funny.
That tickles me.
That's fucking funny as hell.

And I will know that behind each one
Someone crouches.
Behind one you crouch.
Behind each one someone has made
A Safe Home.
Behind one you have made
A Safe Home.
But it's pretty itchy, isn't it?
The dirt is pretty uncomfy, isn't it?
Oh I know.
Oh do I know.
Safety is uncomfy
But feels like a feather bed
When risky risky risk
Looks even MORE uncomfy.
Right?
Yes, I know.
I KNOW.

And I will call your name.
I will call your name.
And I will call your name.
And I will call your name.
And your name.
And your name.
Your name.
YOUR name.
Not his name or her name.
YOUR name.
You'll see my tears as I holler out:

I'm HERE!
I'm sorry it took so long, my dear.
Oh I know you thought you'd always be alone.
Oh I know you thought I'd never come.
Ohhhhhhh SWEET sweet sweet...
I know you nearly gave up.
I know you did give up in moments.
Oh my lovely lovely lovely sweet sweet sweet.
I DO know.
I know the tears you cried.
The way your heart fell and fell and fell.
But I'm here now.
Yes I am!
I'm here.
You need not live in the bushes anymore.
Do I mean it?
Yes! Oh my my my my MY dear dear DEAR,
I mean it.
You can let go of that branch, love.
You can let go now.
You can just
Let GO.

You see, my dear?
Do you see?
Do you see how I've changed?
How I'm not who I was?
I mean....
I AM.
But I'm not.

You see?
Let me tell you, dearest of dear ones,
What has changed -

I thought I wanted to be called FOR.
I thought I wanted to be FOUND.
I thought I wanted to be CALLED TO.

And I do. I do.
Yes.
Oh how I do.
Oh the ache still aches
And still aches
And still aches.

And.
Or rather...
But -

I'm not crouching in bushes and waiting
Any
Fucking
More.

Come Out,
Come Out,
Wherever you are!
Yes, YOU.
Come Out!
I'm here now.

I am It.
I am Love.
And I am here.



****************************
*Photograph from HERE. I ordered a print of this photo and adore it.

"...And I Know That My Heart Is My Home..."

My new favorite song. I really like the music video, too, but there's some scantily-clad-ed-ness in it, just to warn you. :)

Here's the beautiful but not modest version:



And a version without all the skin, if you prefer!

Burlap Inspiration

Going to take an evening for myself. One of the things I'm going to do is use my JoAnn's coupon and buy the vanilla-colored burlap to make my bedroom curtains. I've been putting this off for awhile and really, it couldn't be a simpler project. The edges of the burlap don't need hemming up so there is only the bottom hem (unless I want to fray it, which I may) and making the curtain rod "pocket" on the top edge. I can literally whip up the whole room's worth of curtains in minutes! I'm still entertaining the idea of making white linen or cotton ruffles at the hem. My duvet cover is a light, light tan linen from the Shabby Chic collection at Target. I've got dark furniture, mostly vintage, pure white Rachel Ashwell lamps and huge white Rachel Ashwell "pretty pillows." I have also given up on selling the corset pillow I blogged about HERE awhile ago because it looks so perfect on my bed. I'm going for the really simple, restful taupe and white shades with natural fibers whenever possible.

Here's a photo collage I made using some favorite photos from flickr. It's called, "Burlap Inspiration."

(For a Friend)

Once Upon a Time,

in a little village by the Great River, a little girl was born. She had the brightest eyes anyone had ever seen, from the moment she first opened them, and a spirit very like the Great River itself. She grew up with the Great River a part of her and she part of it. People talked about the hill above the Great River, where people lived in grand houses and had many more luxuries, and just like all the other girls and boys who grew up along the Great River, the girl was as curious as anyone else about such a life.

When the girl grew up she married a man who lived on the hill and together they built a beautiful house on the hill above the river. The girl, now a woman, soon realized that living so far from the Great River was like being separated from part of her own spirit and that no amount of fine things would make this not so. She tried to be at home in the house up on the hill by bringing water to her house. She put buckets of water all around her, embroidered pictures of the Great River on her dresses and painted the Great River on the walls of her house. She named her children after her favorite spots on her beloved river. She told her children stories of the Great River each night when she tucked them into bed. But it was not enough.

She began making trips down to the Great River, sometimes going alone and sometimes taking her children along. On these trips she visited old friends and made new ones; together they danced in the water and she was filled with a joy she realized she'd been missing all those years in the house on the hill. The more she went down the hill, the more she longed to go again, so the trips to the Great River became more and more frequent. She could not help but go as often as she could manage.

Each time she went down to the Great River, she fairly ran down the hill, and as soon as the glistening water was in sight, her whole body seemed to come to life and her spirit lifted. At the end of each visit, when it was time to back to her house on the hill, she felt a deep, heavy sadness. It felt as though her heart was being ripped from her chest, but she knew the house on the hill was her home and she must learn to live there and try her best to be happy there.

Then one day the woman realized that she could no longer go back up the hill to the little house; she couldn't bear it anymore. Every time she made that awful trip up the hill, a piece of her died. She suddenly understood that if too many pieces of her died, the person she really was wouldn't survive. She would become a shell of herself. She must save herself, if for no other reason than that her children needed that real, alive version of their mother. She felt her real self drowning and nothing but air would bring her back to life.

One summer evening as she watched the sun begin its slow descent, she made a hard choice that she'd been avoiding for years. Once she made it, she knew it was the right one. She felt sad; she knew her husband and the rest of the people she knew and loved on the hill would not go with her; they'd made it plain that they expected her to change. So she fetched her children and her belongings from the house up the hill and made the trip down the hill to the River for the last time. With each step it was as though a black-and-white version of her was slowly but surely popping into vivid color.

When she arrived at the Great River's edge, tired from her journey, she sat down and looked around her for a moment. She knew what to do next. She filled her lungs with a big gulp of air and then plunged into the water.

When she stepped out of the river, what she saw was HOME. She was finally home. She laid down and rested for the first time in as long as she could remember and when she awoke she set about making a lovely little home by the River's edge.

She sometimes thought about the house on the hill that she'd left...the people and things she'd left behind. But she knew, deep down inside, that the time she spent on the hill was over and that it had served its purpose: it helped her see who she really was and what she really wanted. Now she knew where Home really was and she would live there all her days.

A Boy of Four

Dear Andrew,

Today my "baby" is turning four. I can hardly believe it! It's a little bitter-sweet that you're not a baby anymore but you are turning into such a wonderful little boy and I'm so proud to be your mama.

Thinking about the last four years, there are so many wonderful memories with you in it. You're my sweetheart, the love of my life and my little man. I love your big, brown eyes. I love your mischievous smile. I love the way you tell me you love me constantly and sing "Hey, I'll be gone today, but I'll be back around the way...it seems like everywhere I go, the more I see, the less I know...but I know one thing...that I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you" and dance around like a crazy person. I love your crazy break-dancing we don't know how you learned. I love the way you look when you are asleep. I love to watch you drawing, digging in the dirt and torturing your sisters. I love the way you hold my hand when we walk someplace. I love your sweet kisses. I love your chubby hugs.

I adore you, Drewbie.

Here are just a few memories from the last few years of birthdays....

This one is just hours before you were in my arms for the first time. You were huge!

Brand-New you with my daddy, Pee-Paw, who delivered you...

You turning ONE and trying cake for the first time...

You turning TWO...

Also turning TWO...getting your fire engine. You were just a LITTLE bit excited!

My big THREE-year-old...

And now...you're FOUR.

Mama loves you so much, sweetie. I'm the luckiest Mama in the world. I'm looking forward to spending this next year with my little man.

Happy Birthday, Sweet Boy...

Love,

Mama

Studio Pics & A Peek...

Want to take a peek inside my studio?

To be honest, this is just a corner of my studio and I've left loads of clutter/mess out of the photos but this is the pretty part and what the rest of the studio will look like soon!




I share an art table with my husband who does some small-scale modeling, so lately some of our favorite evenings are sitting across from one another, working on art stuff or sometimes one of us reading to the other while the other works. You can see just a bit of James' stuff in this photo...


























Here's a little shelf full of some of my favorite things. If you've followed my other blog at all, you may even remember some of these pretties!















Here's a shot of the burlap curtains I made for the studio window last week. I love them but they need some ruffling on the edges before I show the full view!
















Here's some paper "lanterns" I decorated/embellished using cheap pink lanterns from the party store. This is an idea I got from Heather Kowalski when she did this for one of her tutorials in our Sweet Six Studio. You can see some of her lanterns HERE.

I did no sewing with these! It's just ivory muslin and a hot glue gun, plus pieces of yummy ribbons and vintage trims I have in my studio. James hung it up in the corner for me and I love it.




Here's one of the circular Japanese lanterns I didn't add to at all, except for some simple ribbon/trim and a vintage millinery rose I've been saving for just the right thing. THIS was it! :)
















































Pssst....one more thing....can you keep a secret....



Here's a peek at some things I've been making in my studio (or my dining room table, depending on what time of day!) that is going to arrive in the shoppe tomorrow....if you want to find them, go HERE.



























Lots more where that came from, including the "Gossip Gloves" I'm wearing above, several more one-of-a-kind bags and even a sexy apron! Yikes!

Home

Home.

As a child Home was a feeling, more than it was a place. I lived in 15 houses in my first 15 years.

When I was little, Home was where my parents and sisters were. It was where my bed was, where my dolls and stuffed animals were and where I played. It was a bookshelf made out of planks sitting on cinder blocks, filled with Little Golden Books and Dad's huge medical books. A heavy, varnished wood table and six crude Quaker-like chairs where we ate. It was a Raggedy Andy I threw up on and then found in the trash can. The soft light of a lamp burning in the dark early-morning living room and Daddy letting me sit beside him in the chair while he silently prayed, Bible open on his lap. A plastic wading pool that made a large yellow circle on the green backyard grass. Brown couch under which I stuffed a shock of hair I secretly cut off with my little red paper scissors when Mama wasn't looking. It was Mama's fingernails softly tickling my arms and back while Daddy read us before bed. It was horsey-rides and Jesus Loves Me, whispering to my sister in the bed next to mine until she didn't answer any more.

Now Home is people.

It's my sweet Emily with her chocolate brown eyes like my mother's, her perfectly-shaped nose, constantly-moving pretty mouth, refreshing lack of self-awareness, and long legs. It's my Raychie with her huge sweetheart eyes, curly wisps of hair around her face, propensity for cuddling, the way she gasps between phrases and her darling little bob haircut she says looks like mine. It's my Andrew Man with his chubby arms that wrap around my neck and my heart, his baby lisp when he tells me he loves me, the way he knows all the Thomas the Train engines' names and his funny little sense of humor. That's Home.

It's the friends and family that I know love me no matter what is going on in my life, who hold me together when I'm falling apart and who believe in me, even when I don't believe in myself. It's the open doors and open hearts. It's the loving arms, kind eyes and gentle advice. It's the eyes and ears that really SEE me and really HEAR me and the hearts that love me unconditionally, even in my worst moments. That's Home.

It's me, too. Strange to say that, perhaps, but let me explain. I remember in college, after I'd moved out of my parents' house and was living with various roommates, that I felt "homeless." I remember telling my then-boyfriend who I ended up marrying that I felt like I didn't have a home. I slept and ate and cleaned my apartment. But it wasn't Home. I longed for the day when I would get married and have a real Home. I was always looking forward, longing, wanting and wishing, which is what people in their early twenties DO.

But today there is a curious way that I feel at Home....in my own skin. I am 33, separated from my husband, unsure of what the future holds and yet, at Home. I live in an apartment and have my children every other week, but even when they aren't here, I am Home. For the first time in my life Home is not JUST people.

There's a central, base, core....thing....that is Home. I didn't have this at 20. I am not even sure if I had it a year ago. But I do now. It's not that I'm perfectly content with everything in my life or what I see when I look in the mirror. It's not that I don't look forward to things in the future or dream about "better days." There is just an inner calm deep down when I rest in the "knowing place" inside of me. There's a warmth and a rest there. It is so difficult to describe in words but perhaps easier in a picture:

Sometimes I sit down on my bench in the middle of this garden inside of me....a kind of retreat that I can go to if I quiet myself, close my eyes and sit back into myself. I sit down on the bench, I look around and take in everything around me. I feel the breeze on my cheeks and the way it lifts my hair just a bit and pushes it around my neck. I smell the flowers around me and I can hear the sound of a nearby creek, not far away. There are birds chirping happily and a squirrel scampers by my feet, busily on his way somewhere. I look down at my hands on my lap and cross my ankles. I lift my face up and feel the sun on it, eyes closed.

And it's then, when I'm oriented inside of myself there on the bench that I can "pull back" and see myself there on the bench, from behind. I immediately see what I call "the wounded self" sitting there on the bench and I feel a deep love for her. It's as though I'm the mother and she is my child and I almost always touch her hair the way I would my daughter's and pat her head gently and fondly. Usually I sit down beside her on the bench and usually end up gathering her up in my arms. I murmur to her how beautiful, wonderful and loved she is.

It's as this other self, this "Real Self," as I call it, that I can see what is going on with my wounded self. I am able to see clearly the ways she is thinking about things in a way that is causing her pain. Sometimes I just hold her while she cries. The Real Self has wisdom that the wounded self can't see but needs. The Real Self often says exactly what the wounded self most needs to hear and there is often a healing of wounds that occurs when this happens.

That Real Self is Home. It is the place where I see things as they really are, where I know clearly what is important and what is not. It's where love, compassion and empathy, for myself and for others, comes from. It's the place my art comes from. It's the place where my writing comes from.

Like the wardrobe that connects the "real world" to Narnia, it is the passageway into a place that is connected to everyone else in the world. That garden where the bench sits isn't just inside of me; it's inside of everyone. I have my own bench there, but if I get up and walk around I find that everyone else is there, too. Sometimes I encounter their wounded selves and sometimes I encounter their real selves. I don't have a preference; I love their wounded selves just as I do my own wounded self: like a beloved child that, even in her worst moments, is still precious to me. I can see the woundedness for what it is and not confuse it with the real person they are. I know instinctively that we are one family...that we want the same things.

It is there, in that garden that is inside of me, that I feel the things that make someplace...Home. Rest. Comfort. Love. Acceptance. Peace. Connectedness. Happiness.

That's Home.