Go hungry so you will want to eat.

Go on now and touch the sacred stone.
Hungry for insight, or meaning
so depleted by everyone else,
you
will be filled again,
want for less, sit down
to
eat.

I'd been slapping massage treatments like Band-Aids onto clients...

My writing hut/studio/strawbale/retreat

I can't wait to be writing from my little straw bale writing hut, looking out a low window to the raised beds that will replace that big chunk of pavement at the bottom of the driveway at our Cline Falls house.  I can see a series of windows, some about hip height, with a sill just high enough for feet to rest, and maybe some longer, lower ones that let in the entire vision of the garden.  I think I'll sit in a chair like a soft net, draped with a quilt.  There'll be a desk, too, movable, for both writing and painting.  I think I want a low or a sloped ceiling, so that it's cozy, with a green roof on top.  There have to be other seating areas for writing visitors, maybe some kind of bench built into the wall, a futon, a hammock chair, just pillows on the floor?  Only slippers will be allowed.  How will I light it?  We'll build shelves directly into the wall, for books and trinkets.  There has to be some surface to which I can attach things, something better than cork board.  Maybe I can free myself enough to regularly paint or write on the walls.  I'll have a little broom for sweeping, plants, flowers, and herbs everywhere, and a dog bed for Siri.  Wind chimes outside, maybe the bamboo ones.  My own bird feeders.  A beautiful door with tile outlining it.  A little stoop, also tile.  Perhaps a poem tucked into the bales.  A friendly creative spirit up in the eaves.  A bed loft?  Definitely mobiles.  A beautiful earthen floor.  Maybe my musical instruments out, on the walls.  What to do about shade?

Where we think the writing hut and raised beds will go.

Our new house, your tractor-beams of love!

Dear friends, who have been crossing all your limbs and digits in hopes that we'd eventually get the Cline Falls house that we so love,

Surely you're as tired of the body part crossing as we are.  We've been trying not to think about the house in hopes of avoiding too much heartache, but in the face of yet another delay, we've decided to try a new tactic.  We've decided to go heart-fully forward and summon the house to us with full-on creative imaginings of what it will be like once we own it.  To that end, here is a picture of the living area, as it now stands.  How do you imagine we might make it the vibrant and welcoming heart of our home?  What do you imagine we all might do there?  (At the very least, we're removing the carpet...)  Any and all thoughts of remodeling, decorating, coming together, eating, music making, etc., are welcome.  Please post your comments below.

We are casting aside all our cynicism, worry, and doubt in favor of faith in having a home with lots of heart.  Please help us tractor-beam this special place to us with lots of creativity and love.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!  SWAK!

View from the dining area. Note the woodstove in the back corner and bookshelves on the half wall.

View from the bookshelves.

More sentence inspirations:

The yellow crocus just outside the front door is not a miracle of light. - Matthew Dickman

The
yellow pee in the bowl blossoms like a
crocus,
just another irritating reminder that life is kind of miraculous.
Outside, I'm prepared to be astonished:
the true flowers are enough, full
frontal plant nudity blows the
doors off my mind.  Must I be confronted with what
is my own one-in-a-billion chance of being, of being me -
not a rock, not nothing -
a miracle?  I don't want to appreciate that,
of a groggy morning, sleep-scented, relieving myself into a bowl of
light.

I don't have the razor's edge of bluster anymore.  - me

I will eat alone.  Please
don't call me,
have a plan to cheer me up.
The
razor's on the
edge of the tub, not in my hand.
Of unhappiness - I know it, but lack the
bluster of action.  It just doesn't matter
anymore.

Still breathing through.

...The woman you used to know is nowhere in your life. 

The crazy woman you have cut out already, a thousand cuts.

Strangely, somewhere down the line, you’ll want her blessing, still want her presence at an event, maybe a wedding.

You have no idea who she is now. 

She does not even look the same, and her reactions will be all wrong, and awkward, and it will be hard work to have her near.

But some small piece, a thousand cuts deep, says

I remember you.

Lots of skiing

So glad for lots of skiing this weekend, Wanoga yesterday and Meissner, miles and miles of Meissner, today.  I feel thirsty for exercise, I can't get enough of outside, trying to soak up as much snow and sunshine as I can, infuse all that bright energy into my cells.  I've been putting out too much, and not replacing enough.