[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ fullwidth=”on” specialty=”off”][et_pb_fullwidth_post_title title=”on” meta=”on” author=”on” date=”on” categories=”on” comments=”on” featured_image=”on” featured_placement=”background” parallax_effect=”on” parallax_method=”off” text_orientation=”left” text_color=”dark” text_background=”on” text_bg_color=”rgba(255,255,255,0.9)” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” parallax=”on” /][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_divider color=”#ffffff” show_divider=”off” height=”15″ divider_style=”solid” divider_position=”top” hide_on_mobile=”on” disabled_on=”on|on|off” /][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_text background_layout=”light” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” _builder_version=”3.0.100″]

This weekend
we built and planted
our front sign,
heavy ebony-stained
four by fours
and a solar light on top
with white lettering
along the cross beam,
announcing to those
who drive past slowly enough to read that
Here is a place of new beginnings,
a place of hope
and hoped for peace.
Here is sand, and trees,
and four walls,
and no shortage of chickens,
and a roof that still needs to be replaced,
and people who believe
that where you’ve been
shapes who you became
but you have the final say
in who you become.

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I still have more work to do –
the signs for eggs and chicks,
and soap someday too,
need their stencils made,
and lettering painted on.
The base colors are started –
a red, orange
a green, a blue
and two whites
for open and closed.
(Okay, and
maybe yarn someday again, too.
My dyes and spinning wheel
are gathering
entirely too much dust.)

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I’ve been dragging a bit
on everything not Tabula Rasa lately.
It’s not that I’m not doing other things,
but the enthusiasm is different.
Stunted, maybe.
I’ve gotten started, yes,
on a rather ginormous painting project
but it’s still in the
tedious-to-talk-about
planning stages,
and it’s predominantly
all in my head,
minus the few experiments
that involved power tools.
And I’m not able to
work on it quite as often as
some part of my brain
says I would like to be,
partly because
I’m still working out
the spider-web-map-of-possibilities
of what needs to happen next,
like a chess game in my head
of if-then-then-then-then,
over and over and over,
for all the different variables
and possibilites
so that when I start
on this next part
I’m not wasting
what little budget
my artwork has.

“Just start”
is not something
you can do on a budget
when you actually want
something specific to happen.
There is a tremendous amount of planning to be done,
or disappointment and frustration
and heartache
and for me,
feeding of otherwise controlled self-hate.
I try to avoid that last one, particularly.
Planning in my head
is free
and does’t make a mess
and besides,
I can see it there
just as real as it could be
anyway.
Making it
is just proof of concept,
and to finally be able
to show everyone else
what I can see.
(Or try to, at least.)

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And I’m still working on jewelry.
It’s slow.

But things always seem to be,
because with budgets
where groceries and bills
aren’t always a given,
sometimes big projects
take more time than they
might seem like they should.

Still, I find myself
sitting with
a frustrating mix
of depression and burn out –
still dragging myself through
anything that isn’t chickens or
putting down roots,
and if it wasn’t for
old debts
some part of me thinks that
I’d probably just disappear
and close up shop,
though I know
in the long run
I’d regret that.
There is just
an undeniable
pull towards
offline and quiet,
towards things I can touch with my hands,
and the solitude that comes with
living an hour away
from most of everything
that looks like major civilization.
A luxury,
that solitude,
that quiet,
and one I am more loathe to leave
the longer I spend with it.
There is a peace here
that I’ve only found
in brief moments
everywhere else,
one that makes
the ache of loss
and illness and the past
so much less.
Until you’ve known
the peace of Home –
and I know so many who haven’t –
so much of the past of the world
does’t make sense.
Until you’ve known a place
where you’ve belonged
at been at peace,
where you could breathe
and feel just
momentarily safe,
dying for a place
won’t make sense,
and if you’ve never not known that,
what so many people are living through now
won’t make sense either.
When you’ve known both,
your heart aches for
refugees and outcasts,
and there is a rage with
gut-deep roots
discovered and directed towards those
who lack that compassion.

Rabbit holes, again.

All said and done –
I’m discovering what it means
to know Home,
and I find myself
lulled
by it.
I feel like
I have decades of dust
and dirt
and road
and wandering
to recover from,
the kind of tired
I knew was there,
but didn’t know
what the alternative was,
until we found our Tabula Rasa.
So I rest and do bits
and allow myself
to just Be.
I’ll wrangle with the guilt
and productivity propaganda deconditioning
one day at a time.

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