Finding a Rhythm

And I've never spelled rhythm correctly the first time. Hello spellcheck

The fields are in transition, goldenrod once standing tall and bright now bending, turning brown and crumbling into the paths I have been mowing around the property. There are apples on the ground everywhere, Queen Anne’s lace are now closing up like inside out umbrellas, beginning to tilt over and the Joe Pye’ purple flowers are now rusty brown. Autumn puts them all to sleep. There is still purple and white asters filling in but it won’t be long until the fields are just brown, brown,  brown. The colours, the shifting landscape—it all mirrors what’s happening inside me.

It’s been 413 days since my mom died, 274 days since my dad passed, and 109 days since I had to say goodbye to my 11 year old best friend, my teacher, Jersey girl.  Grief is too small a word for the weight of it all. I want to write, but sometimes it hurts too much to remember. The sadness wells up like a tide I can’t hold back so I have not been able to share with you what I have been up to. But I’m here, trying, now at 5:30 Monday morning.

I’m sorry if I seem to have disappeared. I haven’t been lying around, overwhelmed by tears trying desperately to get out of bed. Yes, there are moments when it all hits me hard, but honestly, I’ve had so much energy in these months. I have been outdoors this entire summer and fall. I built an art studio in the greenhouse and I’ve taken art classes at the Toronto School of Arts, The McMichael Gallery, I have spent months getting lost in my paints and learning colour theory. It’s been so healing for me.

And if I’m not painting, I’m woodworking and deep in “YouTube University,” soaking up so much new information that it feels like my brain’s about to burst—mostly in a good way. It keeps me close to my dad. The love and passion he had for woodworking is something I have inherited and I am forever grateful for that. I wear his coveralls, his ear protection headphones, his old Adidas jacket. I’m in the middle of building a mitre saw station for my new sliding mitre saw, and I’ve learned how to cut perfect lines with my track saw. Yes, I buggered up the first splinter guard but I finally found the right video to explain how to do it properly! A huge win for me. My friend Ed came over one afternoon a few weeks ago and taught me how to use my new router and we built a cradled wood panels for painting. My dad used to make them for me and now I’m hell bent on making them myself. I’m also learning  how to build stretchers and how to stretch canvas. It feels endless, the amount of knowledge I’m absorbing, but I love every second of it. I am becoming my dad and I like it.

I also built a little earthing path at the very back of the property, through the woods. I’m really into this idea that walking on the earth without synthetic material like rubber on our soles is incredibly healing. There’s a great documentary

about Earthing so now I wear my mom’s slippers that have a leather bottom ( or I go bare feet ) and try to spend time everyday on the path. My sister Kate helped me with the clearing - she lives a few minutes away and having her nearby has been a huge comfort in this time of grieving. We really have become the best of friends this year and I feel so lucky.

I am fully obsessed with spaces and flow. I’m designing a wood shop space because I feel like I’ve been called to create things. I’ve always wanted to, but I never quite found my flow. I’d make mistakes and lose interest, feeling like I’d failed. But now, I’m learning to slow down. My mitre saw wasn’t cutting straight, so I had to figure out how to tweak it. Sometimes, learning that kind of stuff isn’t what I want to be spending my time on, but then I realize—this is all part of the process. Getting to know my tools, like how to remove the saw blade, fix the bevel to cut a perfect 45-degree angle, all of that is important. And it’s been teaching me patience.

I keep thinking about my dad, how he moved slowly but got things done faster than most people because he took care in every move. He didn’t have piles of tools cluttering his workspace—everything had a home. That idea of “homes” is something I’m really drawn to now. Not just for my tools, but in life. I’m trying to develop habits, like putting things away after I use them, even if I need them again soon. It sounds simple, but for me, it’s a work in progress.

Winter’s coming, and I’m figuring out how to rework my spaces. I’m building my mitre saw station in modules so I can move them around easily and reconfigure according to the space.  I think I’ll move my wood shop into the other Airstream on the farm, which is currently my painting studio. I might move the art studio into the spare bedroom for the winter so my paints don’t freeze. I’ll say it again, yes I’ve been obsessed with spaces lately, trying to create good flow between woodworking, music, and painting. I’ve learned that good flow leads to better projects, and it makes the whole process more enjoyable.

There’s a rhythm to it all, and I’m just trying to find my own.