Ok, I’ve started rooting. It’s been what seems like a long journey to get here, but it is so worth it. This summer we relocated to Durham, North Carolina, and spent the summer looking for a new house, getting setup with new accounts, ids, etc; buying a new house, moving out of our summer apartment, moving into a new house, and finally unpacking a new house. All of this went on while having to use a GPS and Google daily to find and navigate to new places.
I had read that moving is one of the most stressful life events, and is on the list with new baby, death of a loved one, losing a job, and getting a new job. Now that I can navigate on some days without using a GPS, am living with our furniture and our “stuff” again, and have had one full week break from unpacking boxes and sorting – I feel rooted.
Things are still new and take more energy than I am used to, and some things are in the works that take research and lots of paperwork to do, I feel ready to be in the studio again.
The studio itself is not done. I am waiting for the shoe molding to get done on the new floor. I have to touchup the painting I did on the top edge of the room. But – I feel grounded and rested enough to jump back in to writing on my blog and developing Food Font.
The last few weeks when I was not posting, and not working on Food Font – I would often recall an essay that we read in graduate school, A Room of One’s Own, written by Virgina Woolf in 1929. The essay focuses on the idea that, ‘a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.’ It also focuses on whether women have been free to create art, and gives a critical and historical account of many women writers.
The past few weeks, since we moved into the house, my studio was not setup, and I felt unable to do anything creative until the house felt “settled.” I felt unable to just run to a coffee shop and work, and just as unable to work on creative things when there were 50 boxes in the room. I do not always work in my studio space, but is has always been a space that I setup where I can keep track of what I am working on , and also work in if a project demands it.
I love North Carolina, the new people I am meeting, and new places I go to. These weekend is our first “vacation” from moving,” and we are heading to the beach, which is only 2.5 hours away.
But – the big news is that I am back, somewhat rested, and ready to go.