Wild and tidy

I spent the last couple of weeks in Maryland, visiting and helping my mother. Although this trip did remind me that I don’t like clouds of gnats in my face and I am basically allergic to that part of the country, we also got to have a great time with family and friends and even got to meet a baby snake and have regular morning chats with a young rabbit.

I wound up reading two ridiculously relevant books on this journey: First, I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and once that was done, I finally read Wild.

I know these two titles sound almost hilariously opposed, but I actually found them to be on the same wavelength inasmuch as they are each road maps through transformation.

For a number of reasons, both personal and health-related, my mother is currently engaged in a good bit of transformation, but I was also ruminating on my own roots and my many transformations since then.

After our return, I struggled a bit getting back in the groove, but found the usual things got solid ground under my feet: Running and drawing. But not at the same time!

I put finishing touches on these last few Cluster pieces:

And then added a bit of texture to these backgrounds for All In, which will get a whole lot more paint next week:

I will leave you with this quote from Emily Dickinson that leads one of the sections of Wild:

If your Nerve, deny you –
Go above your Nerve –