October

These last two months have been a complete whirlwind. Here's a list of things that happened...

1) My busy summer with Trackers came to an end and I found myself sputtering around to find additional part time work. I did happen to land a phenomenal gig with a Gluten Free food truck on the NCNM ( national college of natural medicine) campus. Dori's Gluten-Free Kitchen is no joke, everything is gluten free, even the tea bags! Dori and Bob are two of the best people I've had the pleasure of working with. I'm so thankful to be in an environment where I'm mindful of my actions, surrounded by food-wise people and homeopathic conversations happen all day long. Check out Dori's blog   for some of the most amazing gluten-free recipes.

2) Hush was unpacked in September for another, very very small exhibit in Olympia, WA. I think I was able to only exhibit like an 8th of the full size, but it still looked pretty impressive and got some rave reviews. Not the best lighting or space, but I'm happy it was viewed by a different kind of audience.

3) On the home front, my summer was depressing. My relationship with Z. had been falling apart gradually over the last year or so and this summer it seemed to completely disintegrate. We were living together mostly out of convenience and neither of us were happy. I spent much of my year trying to proactively seek out remedies for our problems, communicate as clearly and tactfully as I could and  hiding in my studio or at work to avoid the whole hard depressing fact that our relationship was not going to magically get better. The biggest stumbling block was coming to terms with the fact that we had completely different goals for our lives and different attitudes about life in general. The break up was as mutual a thing as it could be and by the time I got the words "break up" out of my mouth we both had known internally for months that it was coming. But once the break up happened, it was like everything fell right into place, like the universe just started sending me high-fives. 

4) I went to California! I spent a week traveling solo to visit all my dearest friends. It was so amazing the way things worked out and I spent some solid time with everyone who I love to the moon. Long conversations, delicious meals, playing, getting dirty, checking out art and adventuring with my crew was exactly what I needed.

5) I moved! Yup it sucked and was stressful, because that's what moving is always like, but I packed everything into a storage unit and moved me and Meg and our bed and books and art into a bright red room of our own in St. Johns. I love it!

6) This one is kind of a secret, not because it's a secret, but because I've kept it on the downlow. I don't expect anyone to understand the inner working of relationships and no one but the people involved will ever know exactly how things shifted away or how new things began.

 After that break up I spent weeks analyzing, processing, writing constantly; I hashed out all the needs that hadn't been met and what was the most important for me in a relationship. What worked or didn;t work, what I learned, how I grew. I started running again and adventuring around on my own. It felt like I had been living for so long with some of my deepest joys unshared; unappreciated by my partner I had tucked so many of my own needs and things I loved down into dark corners. 

 I met someone new. Someone who, just by sharing his deep joys with me, reeled mine into the light because they were the same joys. Spending time with him has felt like finding my magnetic north, we just click together like two little magnets and I can't even explain how serendipitous and natural and grounded it all feels.