While the sunny weather may still hold, the evenings are cooler and a heavy dew greets us in the morning. The kids are going back to school, hopeful, grumpy and somehow so much older than just a year before. It’s a moment where we mark the passage of time with a photo and a memory, the differences filled with equal parts nostalgia and promise.
This time of year, the forest smells sharper as the plants and trees send their energy downwards, prepping for slumber, planning for future spring growth. There’s a decay that is faint and carries with it a whiff of grief and sadness.
The ravens have chased off their young to other territories, and they seem to want to tell me all about it. While not chased off, my eldest is back for her final year of high school on Vancouver Island. I miss her terribly already, undoubtedly adding to the faint melancholy evident in these writings.
My youngest is hardly young, taller than me and counting down his own final years of high school. Life around our household was busy this summer, but now it quiets down to just us and the dog. So I, like many of you, am turning my attention to the dreams and goals I have for the fall and winter months ahead.
I’m under no illusions that my goals and dreams usually take a lot longer than my preferred timeline. Ever since my marriage dissolved like sugar in the rain, I’ve held a dream of turning the workshop into an art studio. Many nights I fall asleep imagining how I’ll set it up, the space and feel, the creative potential. That began two years ago, and it is still far from the completed project I have in mind.
But it gets closer each and every day. Well, most days … okay, some days when I get around to working on it. And there is the rub. Life always seems to get in the way. Trips, obligations, events, child-rearing and a myriad of daily tasks seem to chip away at the minutes until months and months have passed me by.
So on days like today, the first day of school, I’m using my awareness of the passage of time to reignite my motivation to see my dreams come true. Yesterday I took on the shop once again.
I’m slowly separating all the things I don’t want down there from the things I do want. I have the remnants of a construction business, meaning if there’s a fastener you’re looking for, I probably have boxes of it.
It’s an enormous job that, at times, feels so overwhelming I find myself cursing the day he ever left the driveway, never to return again. But then I take a breath. I focus on one area, one item, and begin. Box by box, nail gun by nail gun (seriously, I have about six), the spaces clear and I can see my dreams begin to take shape.
I discovered lately that it’s been over three years since I did a SewnArt painting. I discovered this because I was greeted with a warning in my Gmail account that I was 500 per cent over my storage limit. Confusion abounded until I realized that somehow, at some point, I’d given Google permission to save all of my photos going back to 2023. Maybe I triggered this way back then, I have no idea. I’m a Mac gal and use iCloud, so this was a bit of a shock. It took me some time to systematically delete all my photos from Google, making sure they stayed on iCloud. And that’s when I noticed I had not painted in so many years.
The universe bestows us with gifts, but if you don’t use them, I think your soul withers a bit. The pursuit of survival and the almighty dollar can slowly siphon these talents away from us.
I know that I always feel off when I’m not being creative. I’ve filled that void with my DJing, but my soul really wants to paint. I want to feel the viscosity of paint dragged under my brush, blended, moved and picked up again. Probably to the tune of a wicked house mix, if I’m honest, for this space will be multifunctional!
And so I dream. I dream of a studio that will spark my creativity and the creativity of others. Box by box, tool by tool, my art supplies gain space, my dreams take root. Stay tuned, and if you have any use for 2” DeWalt flooring staples, let me know. That may be just what you need to make your own dreams come true!