Re-roofing our house the past six weeks has been a beast of a project. I do not recommend it! There were days where the thought of hauling myself up a ladder one more time made me nauseous. The Youtube algorithm will forever populate my page with roofing videos. But it’s pretty much done and it looks good. Thanks to my dad for helping me get shingles lifted. And to Heather, who cut shingle courses, took care of the dog, did Home Depot runs, hauled old shingles into the dumpster, spent every day worrying that I would fall – – basically did everything else. Now we wait for Fall rains and hope it works.
The challenge when consumed by large house projects (or any work task that pulls one away from their creative work) is staying creative. I have never believed that making art is what makes one an artist. It’s more a way of being in the world. Which, admittedly, includes eventually making things. I understand this is a contradiction but this is my blog and I can do what I want. Sometimes the production of ‘good’ art goes fallow, and this is important to allow. But you can still make little “noticings.” This will hopefully make sense as you read further down the post.
So it is I return to non-roof-life, found myself with a non-roof-centric weekend agenda, and managed to play my way into this little painting. Over the past several weeks spores had grown on the palette, which I macro photographed.
And I was struck the other day to write a little poem fragment.
So it is with daily life, whether we like it or not: doing what’s ours to do, trying our best with what we have, toiling until our bodies run out of energy, and hopefully allowing a little space for wonder.
What else is there?