As I am wont to do periodically, I have gone quiet.  The truth is, that sometimes the world is too much with me.  This is a time when I hunker down, take stock, recharge, rethink, re-plan.  It used to worry me, these periods of introspection. Now we know so much more about things like depression and how introverts function, and I have learned to ride it out.

One of the things I’ve been thinking about, is that it’s time to clean out my house. And not just metaphorically.  After twenty-six years living with the same man in the same house, we have accumulated a lot of stuff.  After a while the stuff gets in my way.

I’m focusing first on my studio.  The room that houses most of my books and all my art supplies.  (I’d include a photo, except that it would embarrass me to no end to have you see how neglectful I’ve been — my family knows what I’m talking about, ask them.)  It’s also the room where I exercise, write and do all my creative work, the room where my muse resides. She is not happy with the mess.

I’m on a mission here:  Pay heed to my muse and get rid of a lot of stuff.  So, if you haven’t heard from me in awhile, this is where I’m at.

I’ll be back momentarily.  I promise.  In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this little tidbit.  Something I found in one of the many notebooks I have scattered around the room like old shoes.  I rarely date things, so I have no idea when I wrote this, nor do I remember what its purpose was, other than that I do have reoccurring dreams of flying.

Enjoy.

In dreams, I fly, though there are no wings budding from my back like tender shoots that blossom on spring trees.  No feathers fanning in orgasmic waves behind me. There are just my arms — flesh and blood and bone — to lift me, weightless as a dime while I circle above my oldest fears, childhood tormentors grown fat, and unrecognizable, wearing clown pants and floppy shoes.

And this . . . painted while I was in college and my house had hardly any stuff at all.