Beauty In Our Own Back Yard

Ten days is typically my maximum attention span for being away from home. Today is day twelve. Although I enjoyed the workshop and love spending time with my husband, I am looking forward to going home. That itchy for home feeling always makes me laugh especially when before I left all I wanted was a break.

The image above was taken along the coastline near Florence, Oregon, USA. Perhaps if this trip was my first view of the ocean - as beautiful as it is - I'd have been more in awe only I've seen the Pacific Ocean many times and the Atlantic Ocean once. Looking out at that vast emptiness makes me uncomfortable. I prefer to see land on the other side of the water as we can here in Astoria where we're currently staying. The area is gorgeous. Ocean aside, it reminds me of the countryside about an hour and a half from home and that has been a common theme of this vacation. Many times, I find myself saying this looks exactly like the area around ______ and I find myself thinking about how important it is to appreciate where we are and what we have right now, at home, instead of always dreaming of somewhere else.

Above, are the left over supports of the canning factories that used to populate the shorelines around Astoria. Covered in green moss, they're sadly beautiful, left over impressions of a time long past. When the cannery closed, people were forced to move on whether they wanted to or not. I'm believing that they eventually found a new way of life, a new kind of peace and enjoyment.

I recently received a private email from a reader who was concerned with my state of being. I appreciated the courage she showed in writing. It can be difficult to offer our thoughts as they aren't always received in the manner we intended them to be. I felt cared for.

In my life, there are moss covered piers representing paths previously explored and while it has taken time for those landmarks to become a thing of faded beauty, that time was needed to appreciate the desire to move in new directions. As an artist, as a creative, it can get stale to remain in one place. When we are not moving forward and growing, we are lagging behind and dieing a sort of creative death - which is why I'm glad to be off that respirator I alluded to in an earlier posting.

There are MANY galleries along the Oregon coast. We've stopped at quite a few and as I've walked past those walls of unsold art, I am thrilled to be letting go of that time in my life and looking forward to a new focus on designing creative clothing that I can wear immediately without worry about selling. That's fabulous. AND...

... if at some point in my future the ability to teach or share that creativity in a new way becomes available, it will be like the grass sprouting on top of these old piers. They have certainly grasped the concept of bloom where you are planted. Right now, I'm "planted" in my studio with time and space and supplies to explore new directions with no pressure. Good and enough.

The boardwalk behind our hotel runs past a new community of homes built to look like days gone by. The chairs on this porch are the same color as the chairs on the yard at my previous home. The color attracted me right away but what I loved most was the peaceful, calm, settled feeling of the porch.

So often we harm ourselves with unnecessary and unflattering comparisons. Our creativity is not as amazing as so and so's creativity. Our studio is not as big or as equipped. Our stash is not as extensive, expensive, or lovely. Our skill base is not as functional. Our machine is inadequate. And so on. In reality, we are where we are, what is is, and there is a beauty in our own back yard worth exploring.

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - two more sleeps