Saucification

There is a livejournal community which I really enjoy called Saucy Dwellings, which toy can find here: http://community.livejournal.com/saucydwellings/

I am often inspired by the posts here, and occasionally I jump in and add to the open posting thread, and today I added these few photos:

This corner of the dining room is one I'm finally happy with. The fan was purchased at Civil War Days at Naperville Settlement, the artwork is a postcard I purchased at the Getty Museum in LA, and the other is the front of a card I received several years ago. The Moses statue and the Winged Victory statue came from my grandmother's house, and the bronze man is my wife's. The candleholder came from my parents, and the photo is of my other grandmother and me out at lunch a few years ago.

I just purchased this piece today at a shop called Persona, which is just north of the Music Box theater on Southport Ave. in Chicago, and now it's living in my first floor bathroom.

More art from my grandmother's house, now hanging over my sofa. This isn't the permanent home of this, I don't think, but I like it here for now.

My parents have a trivet like this, which I've always loved. This Christmas they gave me one of my own.

I am excited to keep saucifying my house!

Exhaustion

I am the type of person who moves my furniture around every few months. Since I moved into my own house just over three years ago, I haven't done so much of that - most of the shuffling has been practical, rather than aesthetic, and the furniture arrangements are basically settled because they are what happens to fit in the space. However, the urge to change my space, to rearrange and reinvent hasn't gone away.

I stare in horror at the horrid tiling job around the window of the first floor bathroom, or the peeling paint on the ceiling in the bedroom and I think, "Gods, I have got to fix this!" and then I start adding up how much it would cost to do it right, and I throw up my hands and sigh. It's not that I can't paint the ceiling myself, or hang shelves, or a variety of other small projects, but I don't have the paint I need, and I don't have the energy to go find it. Time and energy are huge parts of the cost of these projects.

I don't know how other people do it. Go to work all day and then come home and spend time doing more things, like cooking or laundry or cleaning or whatever. I come home so fried that all I want to do is eat comfort food and read a book or play a video game.

Waiting Out the Cold

It may be staying lighter longer, but I would trade some light for some warmth. Yesterday was actually colder than today, but there is something about being chilled for a long period of time that, even when it starts to warm up, makes any amount of cold hard to bear. I clearly need a bumper-sticker that says, "I WOULD RATHER BE HIBERNATING."

I spent most of the day playing World of Warcraft and grading papers. Maybe not the most glamorous mix of activities, but the grading had to get done, and there's only so long I can stare at pieces of paper with deep concentration before I have to take a break. Furthermore, sitting still while I work just makes me feel colder.

Oh, and did I mention that I'm tired of being cold?

Yeah. 'Cause I am.

And also, I can't sleep. And it sucks.

The Moon's My Teacher, And I'm Her Student

The moon rose today, looking like a pale pumpkin, squashed against the horizon. As it rose, it got paler, and rounder, until it more resembled the face of a mother gazing down at the child she is cradling in her arms. And so here we are, the children of the moon, gazing back, wishing we could stand outside and howl. But instead we are waiting for the end of the cold, curled around our teacups and our lovers like cats around the warmth we leave in our blankets when we trudge off to our lives in the early dark of the morning. As I watched the moon rise, I kept singing, over and over, bits of a song that I have thought of often, but haven't listened to in a long time. Here, in their entirely, are the words to that song:

Calling the Moon

The moon wanted more of my night
I turned off the engine and the headlights
The trees appeared as they'd never been gone
I promised the fields I'd return from now on
And the moon kept on rising
I had no more to say
I put my roadmaps away
And surrendered the day

And I know you'll be calling me soon
And if I don't answer I'm calling the moon
Calling the moon
I was calling her then
I'm wondering will she take me again
Oh, I am calling the moon

When I called the moon back to me
I thought she wanted my beauty
I shone in the best that vanity buys
I covered the path where my life turned to lies
And the moon kept on rising
But I felt nothing at all
She comes when the empire falls
And shines on crumbling walls

Calling the moon
By the name that she chose
As Tennessee wandered in moth-eaten robes
Oh, I am calling the moon
Calling the moon
Oh I'm calling the moon

Oh, make sense of me, night
I can see so much from this cold height
The moon said oh darkness my work is done
I've poured this bottle of light from the sun
But their anger keeps on rising
And they don't understand
I've shown them all that I can
That the world is at hand

And I know they'll be calling me soon
And if I don't answer I'm only the moon
I can see by her light
This one's going out to the moon tonight
Oh, I am calling the moon

Calling the moon
'Cause I know what it's worth
To tug at the seas and illumine the earth
Oh, I am calling the moon
Oh, I am calling the moon

Not As Hard

I came home with a car full of boxes. I threw out five or six bags of trash, and I brought home ten or twelve small boxes, plus a few other things, and two of those boxes were filled with books to bring to school, so in the end, I don't think it's all that much that I brought back with me. I left behind one trash bag full of clothes and toys, and two medium-sized boxes full of household stuff ready to be donated to someone who will use those things. I also left an empty dresser, filing cabinet, stacking bins, bookshelf, and desk. My closet is organized, my bookshelves have been combed through and consolidated, I only have one box in my parents' attic, and most of the "stuff" that was scattered around my room has been removed.

Overall, the process was a lot less emotional than I thought it might be. I gave myself permission to keep things that mattered and to put aside decisions about things that I really couldn't decide about, and that helped immensely. A lot of people have the attitude that, since I haven't used these things in years, that they must not matter too much, and I should just throw everything out. In some ways, that might have been easier, but I'm glad I took the time to make decisions about what I needed and wanted to keep.

So now I have to find homes for the things that I brought with me. Most of them, I have an idea for already. Books on the bookshelves, figurines on some floating shelves from Ikea, artwork on the walls, etc. The biggest project is going to be to run all my photos through the scanner so I can get rid of some of the scrapbooks and cards I have left over from junior high and high school. I already threw away 90% of that stuff, but there are a few bits lingering around that I have craft projects planned for as well.

And so, life goes on.

It's Time

The Soundtrack:

A Warm Place - Nine Inch Nails

Love You To Death - Type O Negative

Glycerine - Bush

Disarm - Smashing Pumpkins

Burn - The Cure

Five Years - David Bowie

The Last Day On Earth - Marilyn Manson

Just Like Heaven - The Cure

The Passion of Lovers - Bauhaus

Long Hard Road Out of Hell - Marilyn Manson

Hollow Hills - Faith and the Muse

Preparation

There's a great song Richard Shindell sings called "Waiting For The Storm", which contains the following lines:

I've opened all the windows wide

I've left the doors ajar

Everything that was inside

I've spread out in the yard

I've made my preparations

There's nothing more to do

But sit here in this rocking chair

Waiting for the storm

It's a solid song, and it's most definitely about someone waiting out a hurricane, or some similar natural disaster. This evening though, it carries overtones of a life lesson.

Tomorrow I am going to get up early, get in the car, and go to Ohio for the weekend. The purpose of this trip is to take the time to go through all of the things still left in my parents' house that I have yet to sort. These are all my things, which I left there when I moved to Chicago seven and a half year ago, and I have never gone back to retrieve. There is a filing cabinet full of things, a dresser, two bookshelves, a closet, several boxes in the attic, and a hodge-podge of other small things that are living in my room, awaiting the fate of the trash can, Goodwill, or coming to a new home. I too will have to spread things out in the yard, symbolically speaking, and wait for the emotional storm to come pass over them and see what remains.

It's the boxes in the attic that I'm the most conflicted about confronting. Some of the things up there, like the backdrop from a play I did at Girl Scout camp one summer, can be photographed and thrown away. Although these items are attached to memories, they aren't so strong that I need the actual items around anymore. Other items will need to be savored. I have a box, and by this I mean a box, not a shoe box, full of letters from my friends from junior high and high school, and even a few notes and letters from college. Many of these can be let go - I will keep the ones that are most special to me, but not everything. Then there are the more complex items, like my Senior Scrapbook. I spent hours assembling that thing, though I don't know why. I do like to look back at it from time to time, and the sensible thing to do would be to scan each page and then throw the book away once I have the images, but... all that time, and all that creative process seems to be a bit wasted if I do that.

Honestly though, those aren't the hardest items. They may be emotionally connected to the heaviest parts of my life, but there are ways to work with them to keep the memories and lose the clutter. The thing that's really getting me stuck is a blanket I owned when I was a little kid. It's an interactive blanket, featuring a farm scene, and there are pockets for putting these little stuffed ponies in. (That explanation in no way does it justice; I'm going to have to take a picture.) The trouble with this item isn't that I kept it, it's why I kept it. I saved it because it's something someone made for me, that I wanted and planned and hoped to some day pass along to my own children.

I will be thirty this summer. I know that women are having children later and later in life, but I have to be realistic. Between the demands of my job, my marriage, and my own desire for free time, I have to be honest with myself - it is highly unlikely that I am going to be having children of my own. I'm not even entirely sure that I want them. There is certainly a part of me that would welcome them, that has dreamed and hoped and planned all my life to have them, but there is another part of me that enjoys not having to worry about child care and what time I come home in the evening or about being responsible for anyone other than myself. And so... what do I do with that blanket? Or with the books that I kept with the sole purpose of passing them on to my own children? I'm really not sure. Maybe those things will have to stay in a box in the attic, because that's not a dream I'm ready to let go of, no matter what my more practical mind is telling me. I don't know that I won't have children, and I am someone who hangs on to possibilities, no matter how slim, so... someday I might have kids of my own. Therefore, I will keep these things. And if I don't use them, then I know that I will get to the point where I can let go of them. Some day. And then I can give them to someone else to love. Eventually.