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| The small university town of Lecce captured my heart. |
Breaking the Mold
My first six months after leaving my job were focused on an Italian adventure
that was designed to shift my attention away from my previous work life. I
immersed myself for four months in learning a bit of Italian, planning my
adventure, and figuring out the art I would do while in my Assisi residency. Then, Bellisimo! I gloried for two months in the delights of Italy's Mediterranean
culture. When I returned to Eugene in early December the university felt long ago and far away, just as I
had hoped it would.
Once back, I began embracing life without an
external job - the adventure of being my own boss again. I started with the
obvious – daily exercise to keep me healthy and fit and regular social interactions.
I decided to do yoga five times a week and figured out that the cheapest way to
do that was to join the Downtown Athletic Club. If I break down the monthly fee
in terms of a daily class cost, it’s about the cost of a large coffee or chai
tea, maybe a little less. The trade-off is more than worth it.
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| Every day I see gracious yogis opening up around me. |
Jaw Drops & Belly Lifts
I know I’ve shared before how yoga improves body health in small incremental steps that take awareness even to notice. Definitely doing it five days a week (instead of one or two) speeds up the process. The most startling event so far was the day my left jaw dropped. Yep, I was in down dog and the teacher said to relax your mouth. I did and all of a sudden my left jaw dropped. It took a few seconds to realize that it wasn't broken; it was relaxed. How many years of tension do you think fell off that day?
I’ve been doing yoga and Pilates for over ten years. One of the reasons I got into these was to develop some
core strength that would hold up my sagging stomach. Well, it never happened,
until just recently. After six months of doing yoga five days a week my belly
is beginning to lift. I still have a long way to go, but I finally have some
abdominal strength. It feels great.
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| The scent of Jasmine greets me each time I leave my home. |
Obvious & Not So Obvious Elephants
As I approached what it means to be a fulltime artist, I
confronted former ideas of what this would mean. An old
dream of opening a creativity center near downtown re-emerged and I took the steps of
looking for a site, preparing my place to sell, getting preapproved for a
mortgage, and exploring available sites. After several months of searching, I
realized that nothing I could afford was available. This “reality testing” brought
me to my senses.
I backed up and took a different approach. If I
could clear stuff out of my current home, perhaps I could open up enough space in
my art studio for painting large pieces and to be able to hold art classes. It would require
serious clearing. I began tackling the obvious with vigor: clothes and
books. Professional jackets and pants went quickly to working friends. Books
were more of a struggle, but something had to go to make room for my burgeoning
Eve’s Imprint library so I could get it out of the studio. I hesitated over the shelf
of Shiatsu books. “Okay, I am not going to do Shiatsu again or write a book
about it.” Out they went to a friend who can use them.
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| There are still two shelves of Eve's Imprint research binders and sketchbooks in the studio closet, sigh. |
The not so obvious elephant blocking the attainment of more
space sat where no one but me knew about it; shipping crates for my Pilgrimage
paintings consumed both studio and bedroom closets upstairs. This was forcing
me to clutter my studio with finished work and supplies that limited my
workspace.
An epiphany happened when I took the paintings out of the
crates to hang in a show downtown. I realized that the paintings themselves do
not take that much room. It’s the padded shipping crates that hog space. I did
some backward domino thinking: if I cleared old magazines (collage material) and house paints from the
storage unit in front of my home, then I could move the gardening supplies
there and clear space in the back storage unit for the shipping crates.
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| The narrow storage unit in front of my home that blocks the view of my parking space. |
Hauling away boxes of magazines and old cans of paint
require a vehicle so I enlisted a neighbor’s help. I planned to request his assistance
with moving the shipping crates down the stairs and into the back storage unit.
Of course, the day everything was ready for that move, he was not home. Brain
over brawn, I figured out how I could move the crates using leverage and
gravity. Fortunately for me, there were no snags as I allowed the boxes with their
heavy interior padding to slide down the stairs toward me and then maneuvered
them across my living room, out the patio door, and into the back storage unit.
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| The hardest part was figuring out and executing a configuration that put the widest and longest crate on top of two that were the same height. |
Now for the Fun
To make more space available in the studio closet, I tackled
boxes of supplies that I had packed for moving. How many of these do I actually
need? If I haven’t done watercolor painting since I shifted to acrylics over
ten years ago, do I really need to keep all of these supplies? If I have never used the silk-screening materials, how likely is it that I will use them? Now another friend has supplies to aid her artistic journey. With the help of shelving units and
hanging storage bags, all of the large supplies and Eve’s Imprint reference
binders went into the closet.
As I moved finished work from the studio into the now more
spacious bedroom closet, I found two items from my former office: a gold
table runner from Thailand that used to cover my lateral files and a Mexican
mirror that hung in every one of the many offices I had at the university. Intuitively,
I took the table runner into the studio and placed it over the top of one of my
rolling cabinets, along with a Cambodian statue that I acquired on a trip in
1968.
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| A rolling cabinet that holds paper, matt board, and backing boards now features our human migration journey and a place for my mandala in progress. |
The Mexican mirror stumped me. Was I ready to give it up? If
not, where would it hang? Every room in
my home had a mirror except the studio. What about the studio? I carried it there
and looked for a space - maybe behind the easel? Not sure, I left it propped
against the wall. When I hung it a few days later, I had another epiphany.
I looked around my more spacious studio, smiled and said, “This is my new
workspace!” The table runner and mirror had migrated from the old to the new workspace.
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| I love the way two doors open and a solid mirror appears. |
I’ve discovered that some retired people are
offended by my delight with my new workspace. They cannot grasp that I have
not retired and do not intend to retire. I have repositioned from being
focused on income generation to doing the work that I love and that therefore
is play. Yes, I need to bring in a little income to keep my head above water,
but that needs to come from doing the things that I love to do: painting,
writing, and teaching. So for those who may be offended by the idea of a
workspace, think of my more spacious studio is my new play space.
The writer part of me will have her day soon. I have begun
clearing file drawers in the downstairs home office to make room for new projects. Ten years of financial records have been shredded but there are files of book drafts, etc. yet to be examined. Clearing is slow but necessary
work. And even though this work is invisible to visitors to my home, it is opening up
space inside me to move forward into my new life.
Centered and Sane
During the last six months, I have come to recognize that I
am living in an alternate universe that I did not know existed. It is amazing
to awake without stress and tension. It is refreshing to shift from a daily “revving the motor” gear into an energy-conserving “cruise control” gear. I
enjoy releasing old “desires” for a new jacket/necklace/whatever, indulging
instead in my deep passion for sharing my vast international experience in new
and innovative ways.
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| Kendra's memorial garden beside my patio. She continues on the journey with me. |
