explanations and apologies

It hasn't quite been two months since my last post (though that mark is fast approaching), but it has come to my attention that there are people who do read this and are annoyed that I haven't posted in so long. My apologies in particular to Heather. This one's for you.

Since I last wrote, a lot has changed. I have a new apartment (almost fully moved in--advanced thanks to Chris); there has been a parting of ways, which is painful, bittersweet, and hard to tell from here whether it's entirely the right choice; I'm about to embark on a new program in school, though it is a familar topic of study; my grandmother is out of the hospital, but saddled with bills and, apparently, a new round of antibiotics to try to take care of the original problem; and my cats are due to turn on me, just as soon as they realize that "outside" is a concept they won't know for at least the next two years and that I am their new prison warden. Lots of tiny new beginnings to contemplate and losses to grieve. I am brimming with ideas, mostly for new art pieces, but a bit worried that all I have are ideas. I need action. Concrete motion I can apply to these ideas. In short, I need to get out of my head. Not so easy, considering I feel like I want to crawl under a rock and stay there for a while. (What do you think I've been doing since my last post?)

Strangely, in a town where good weather is so short-lived and rain falls 9 months out of the year and I am a California weather girl at heart, I am looking forward to winter. I hesitate to say fall, since fall is such a short blip in Portland. Oooh, it's chilly, look at the leaves... turning to muck in the rain addled street. Then, winter. But, winter is a good time to crawl inside onself, shed the old, clear out room for the new. It's a time of internalizing what is to come next-- a period of gestation, if you will --and a time to comfort with blankets,wine, fire, soup, and, of course, baked goods. Winter will begin early for me. It is more of a state of mind. I am losing the fireplace, but I will have candles and the rest of that list. If I can manage to fill my time with good work and good people, I will eventually emerge from, maybe not a chrysalis, but from someplace dark and deep and, right now, necessary.