Quietly Working
There's a new painting on the easel, about halfway finished, and at the moment it is definitely one of those problem-solving works. The composition consists of a woman reading at a table. There is a vase with branches in the foreground. The woman is wearing a green sweater. I have rarely worked with green as the central color, and it has been an interesting process.
In the meantime, during our fourth month in this new residence, we continue much as before, quietly working, with occasional small house-settling activities and visits with family. We celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary with a fabulous dinner out at one of the best restaurants in town, a very short walk from here. But we also celebrated with a conscious decision to not buy anything new for one year unless it was absolutely necessary. Occasional perks from secondhand shops are okay if very occasional and very cheap. When we do have to buy something new, we will get the best quality we can afford, in the hopes that it will last. So far so good. It's time and money-saving, certainly clutter-relieving, but not so draconian that we create more difficulties than we solve for ourselves.
In time, we will likely have just one vehicle instead of two, and when that happens we will get a new garage door and opener, but not before. We have a great new refrigerator but have no need for a dishwasher, and the little cookstove that came with this house has turned out to be just fine, even kind of fun to use. I miss my old garden an awful lot, miss it more than the old house, but this yard is just fine as it is for a year. No need to spend hundreds on trees and plants and hardscaping, when over time I might find myself acquiring plant divisions from friends, corn lilies from the farm, etc., and quite possibly some of the plants from my old garden, as the new owner has some ideas of her own and might want to eliminate some of the plants which are there at the moment. I told her I'd welcome her rejects with open arms. When I was a landscape designer it was important to have everything as finished and mature-looking as possible in my own garden, a process both expensive and exhausting. Don't need to do it that way anymore.
We did manage to retrieve our remaining possessions from the old garden and shed and one of those items was the big worktable that was once in my studio. It's in pieces in the basement here at the moment, and now that the Easter holiday is past, we will probably reassemble it today. Soon we will also be able to clear the garage of the piles of cardboard and empty boxes and items destined for the city recycling compound, after which I will be able to set up the table saw and other items from the garden shed. It will be good to have those things accessible again.
One important neglected activity is to correspond with friends, which I plan to remedy today. The move, with its change of lifestyle as well as environment, has left me with a slight identity crisis, making it difficult sometimes to know how to relate to others. At least that is true for me. It is getting easier as time goes on, and as I get more comfortable in this new place, I get more comfortable in my own skin.
The green sweater in my new painting is, in this case, a lot more than just a green sweater.
In the meantime, during our fourth month in this new residence, we continue much as before, quietly working, with occasional small house-settling activities and visits with family. We celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary with a fabulous dinner out at one of the best restaurants in town, a very short walk from here. But we also celebrated with a conscious decision to not buy anything new for one year unless it was absolutely necessary. Occasional perks from secondhand shops are okay if very occasional and very cheap. When we do have to buy something new, we will get the best quality we can afford, in the hopes that it will last. So far so good. It's time and money-saving, certainly clutter-relieving, but not so draconian that we create more difficulties than we solve for ourselves.
In time, we will likely have just one vehicle instead of two, and when that happens we will get a new garage door and opener, but not before. We have a great new refrigerator but have no need for a dishwasher, and the little cookstove that came with this house has turned out to be just fine, even kind of fun to use. I miss my old garden an awful lot, miss it more than the old house, but this yard is just fine as it is for a year. No need to spend hundreds on trees and plants and hardscaping, when over time I might find myself acquiring plant divisions from friends, corn lilies from the farm, etc., and quite possibly some of the plants from my old garden, as the new owner has some ideas of her own and might want to eliminate some of the plants which are there at the moment. I told her I'd welcome her rejects with open arms. When I was a landscape designer it was important to have everything as finished and mature-looking as possible in my own garden, a process both expensive and exhausting. Don't need to do it that way anymore.
We did manage to retrieve our remaining possessions from the old garden and shed and one of those items was the big worktable that was once in my studio. It's in pieces in the basement here at the moment, and now that the Easter holiday is past, we will probably reassemble it today. Soon we will also be able to clear the garage of the piles of cardboard and empty boxes and items destined for the city recycling compound, after which I will be able to set up the table saw and other items from the garden shed. It will be good to have those things accessible again.
One important neglected activity is to correspond with friends, which I plan to remedy today. The move, with its change of lifestyle as well as environment, has left me with a slight identity crisis, making it difficult sometimes to know how to relate to others. At least that is true for me. It is getting easier as time goes on, and as I get more comfortable in this new place, I get more comfortable in my own skin.
The green sweater in my new painting is, in this case, a lot more than just a green sweater.
posted by meg at 9:58 AM
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