I felt the change coming, the same way I've heard my Grandmother tell how she'd known when a Quebec snowstorm was coming days ahead, with no real evidence to point to. Sometimes, you just feel these things, and do the best you can to prepare.
I knew it was coming but I had no idea what it would bring. It was as though all the elves in my creative North Pole just didn't show up to work one day, and then the next, and so I played the JayMay station on Pandora loud enough to drown out my fears, and made bowl after bowl on my pottery wheel, just waiting, and listening.
It's a strange place to be, as an artist, in this land of a million questions but no answers. I had a list, pages long, of what I knew I didn't want, but my lineup of plans and what-comes-nexts was entirely blank.
I journaled a lot, and called my friends a lot, and finished knitting a sweater that I started last year. I cleaned the bathrooms every other day and at one point the neighbor downstairs actually complained that I was vacuuming too much. I was.
The calm before the linguistic storm. The countdown before the lyrical jump.
I was letting go of things the only way I really know how, but there was a tiny voice that worried the muse would never return; part of me definitely wondered if the workshop had closed for good.
As a Birthday present to myself, I got an annual physical and my blood work showed I had no iron, no iron stores, low b12 and low folate. I cried on the drive home because of course my body was mimicking my soul, I have always been that girl. In the car, watching the mothers who wear red lipstick and high-heels whizz by, I wished so hard, that I wasn't me. If only I could be them.
But then again, no. I have things to do in this lifetime and wishing I could unzip my skin and step into someone else's is the last thing I need to be doing.
I have been eating one half of a Trader Joe's children's vitamin since then to try and bring my levels back up.
But really, I've started writing, which I think (I know) is exactly what this whole vapid creative season has been preparing me for, and what will bring life back to my bones.
It's time.
There is so much more I have to say about all of this, but my my kids just walked in the door and one wants to play "keep the balloon up jumping game" (again, our downstairs neighbor loves us), and the other is (always. permanently.) hungry.
I'll share more about this new beginning, so soon.