Without Getting Away

"Hi, little Artist.

Hi, often-depleted maker and worker bee.

Dinner chef.

Home-keeper.

Mother-on-call-forever.

Know-er of Right Things.

Rarely in compliance with The Refill.

Tell me: how do you constantly give such loving, empowering advice to your friends and leave yourself in the lurch?"

That's what my Big Artist asked me yesterday when I decided to stay home from a trip up Niles Canyon with my boys.

I reasoned that I could get more studio hours in if I was solitary, that I might even sneak out to the hammock and sun-bake for fifteen minutes.

I reasoned.

My heart, on the other hand, was aching.

These are memories I cannot re-get later in life when the boy is more boy than babe.

I cannot re-see my handsome mate in the antique passenger car,

I cannot feel the ghost of my Uncle Walter with each train whistle

I cannot be five again

if I am by my self

at home

.

I write this over my morning coffee, refreshed and inspired.

I write this with the smell of oil smoke on yesterday's laundry pile

and a flutter in my heart when I think of my husband.

I write this knowing that anytime you take on an adventure there is a handshake with Life. 

We are train people, we should be on trains often.

A glorious unexpected gift: hexa web mixed-grade star sapphires in blues, purples and greys

at an unassuming antique store.

They are so astounding in the palm of my hand.

So to you, reading this:

where is your rut?

Is it so comfortable that you don't even know that you're halfway down your well-worn path again?

Can you lose your sensibility for an afternoon or a night?

I write to you from the other side of my usual coin

with a happy assurance that you refill more wells

than you ever could

if you stayed home:

what do you get

without getting away?

xoxoxo,

Sunny