To Have a Son

To have a kid is to go on the adventure of a lifetime.

I certainly cannot stress enough that it's the hardest work I've ever done.

Everything else comes after his needs and that can be tough as hell.

I'm at a total loss about Doing It Right pretty consistently

but 

This morning I apologized for being cranky

while I was driving with him

and from the back seat he said,

"Aw, Mom, that's okay - I will take care of you today."

.

And just like that, a flood of joy. A waterway open

for our little boat.

Around and around and around the world we go,

where we stop only God knows

.

xoxo,

Sunny

Rooting

This is the before, which is also the now.

 Bit by delicious bit I'll be making this garage into

my workspace.

I've always landed in a room that needs nothing more than a fresh coat of paint: everything all ready to go, just move all the benches against the walls and begin. This space is incredible in the way it presents both challenges and gifts: not a wealth of wall space and nothing I would call 'pretty', but VAST. 

In just a few weeks this will be my soldering station extraordinaire, with a new actual jeweler's bench

(!!!!) and a bright cheery yellow-orange paint job. Poppies will unfurl. Switch plates may even get replaced: this is going to be very very good.

Last night I tapped my graver across a fresh piece of sterling and took my first pass at what will end up being Cecil the Lion. If you're on the internet ever you likely know his story: a dentist from Minneapolis paid 55,000 usd to kill him in Africa. 

I mourned for him and all his death represents, for the terrible way we treat the earth and all her creatures.

Part of his engraved proceeds will go to charity. Maybe you can help me pick out a relevant one?

I'll be researching.

The myriad Orb Weavers doing their very best to wrap up our back yard have 

inspired a few pretty saddle rings: this one will have an ammonite doublet at its center, vibrant and incredible.

This month's round of work will be a celebration of the emptying out

that is harvest-time, the exploration of husks

and the dregs of summer.

I look forward to sharing them with you!

I hope you're doing so well today. 

xoxo,

Sunny

Exhaling

We are settling in to the peace of our new home.

The hard work of constant schlep is done: we have moved!

Almost as if to reinforce the right choice to do so,

I read news of someone being stabbed in the neck two blocks away from our old home in downtown

San Jose.

Of yet another homicide a mile away.

I could tell you of the stress that started undoing me, raising a tender young thing in the midst of what had steadily become more violent surroundings.

Of losing some of my eyebrows to it.

Of nights where tension worked its way across my face in tight waves I could not stop.

Of some young party-goer ringing my doorbell wildly near 10 pm ( "Bitch, come OUT! It's time to go!!") and how I melted down 

spectacularly upon closing the door.

Of a stranger trying to climb into my neighbor's kitchen window at 5 am, given away by the crunch of the gravel and scared off by my loud voice a few feet away across the driveway.

The reduced police force in a terrible state of overwork.

Rumors of emergency response times taking upwards of ten minutes or much more.

The crush of unmedicated and unwell transient souls that roamed the streets in need and in pain.

I loved our rental house so much, that ramshackle cottage that saw us through five years of 

city life, but it was clear that raising O put us in a different mindset than

the two young professionals that had moved in childless.

I could never turn off my vigilance and it was wreaking havoc on my body.

Any small noise at night set my heart pounding and kept me up until dawn.

I needed a small town again.

The balm of rolling blonde hills.

I wanted O to grow up with a mom who was well and strong.

As much as I loved city living for a younger version of myself,

I had to admit to the shift of becoming a mother had changed the way I related to 

the outside world.

My second bedroom blue studio is traded for a white-walled garage space

where my workbenches circle around the center point like stones around a campfire.

I'm intimidated by the largeness of the space

and at the same time I am giddy every time I set foot in there.

It's more industrial

and super free

and I can drop molten things on the freshly painted grey concrete floor without fear.

Schmilly and I are pretty sure we'll be building a handsome studio structure in the back yard

after the (hopefully) rainy season passes,

but I want to feel out the garage: maybe I won't want something new after I expand to fill

the space fearlessly.

We are unfurling.

Sitting still with the silence here,

driving the country roads

and looking at the stars that seem to have multiplied 30 miles away from where we rarely saw them.

We are here.

We are here.

All is well

.

xoxo,

Sunny