Sipping weak black tea as a substitute for the coffee I love and haven’t been able to drink in a couple weeks. I miss it so much. It was a mental trigger for the start of the day. Tea is great, but doesn’t have the same mental connection and boot-up power as my beloved first cuppa joe. At least not yet. I’m looking at my porcelain souvenir mug that says “MIND THE GAP.” It used to bear a map of London’s Tube, but it is long worn off, leaving me only a bold-font reminder to take heed and watch where I step. Sound advice. Ah, London. I love you.
Beads and equipment are packed up and ready to go today for the Quilter’s Connection Workshop. Beads all day! Heaven! The longer I take to get packed up the more beads I tend to haul with me, and most I don’t use myself during the workshop. So, I limited myself to one tub of goodies. It will be a really great day with super nice people today. Thank you, QC, for inviting me to teach!
Once again I am grateful for being an artist, for having worked on art that interests others enough to want to learn from me (what little I can share!), and for still having a spark of curiosity about what else can come ahead for me creatively. It is a way of life. Making things. Being in the zone of concentration and focus. Thread therapy. Call it what you want, it is a part of my life that I need desperately. Right now things in my life feel really out of balance because of health and pragmatic issues. I know I would feel better and be mentally more positive and focused if I was “exercising” with my needle and thread. While lately this is has been tough to do, I still know it is waiting in the wings and is a valuable part of my person. I am grateful also to be able to work with other people, kids and adults, to help them discover the magic,too. It’s a good life, all in all.
I think of the Marc Almond quote from a Soft Cell song many years ago: “I may be a wreck and a pain in the neck but at least I know that I’m alive.” That one has always stuck with me. Artists are people who often feel the need to do impractical things, live impractical ways, and get by on impractical systems. I am grateful to be among them, even if I don’t have the production I once had. Life is hard, having bodies that break and fail is hard, art is not hard. Must indulge. Cheers.