Post #3257: Catching up

Whenever I go on holiday, I tell myself that somehow I’m going to keep up the writing, blogging, posting – because why not? Vacations are all about free time, right? Except they aren’t, because wherever you go you want to experience that place – hike, kayak, walk about, eat ice cream – all the things! And so as much as I would like vacation time to be productive creative time, it usually isn’t. You would think by now I would have learned that. As much as I love a break, I always come home feeling the need to get caught up, which is the state I’ve been in the last couple of days.

I returned home from Cortes Island on Thursday evening, and spent much of yesterday running errands and cleaning my kitchen (scrubbed the fridge top to bottom!), because my parents are coming today, we have a house concert tonight and our long weekend party starts next Friday (plus I have to go to Victoria for a union-related matter in the middle of the week). That’s a lot of coming and going in the next ten days! Fortunately, we are very adept at this hosting business, and the friends who come for the long weekend are all DIY-oriented so we’ll make it happen no matter how behind I’m feeling at the moment.

I’m catching up in the studio this morning a bit with some writing and fibre in the dye pot (overdyeing madder with cochineal, then doing a skein with marigold in preparation for indigo dyeing in August). I’ve got my small loom almost dressed (just a little more to go and I’ll start weaving again), and a couple of knitting projects nearing completion. Towards fall I’m going to have to start sewing some clothes, since I’ll need a few things for the city now that I’ll be heading back there more regularly. I haven’t spent any time in Vancouver since March 2020, which feels strange after a lifetime spent there.

I’m heading out to the farmer’s market this morning to pick up my weekly veggie box that I missed on Tuesday, and then my folks will arrive and we’ll spend the day visiting and eating before tonight’s show. Going away is a lovely break, but I’m always so glad to be back in the flow my life – even the chores are part of what sustain my feeling of place in the world. I sometimes think this home-body-ness is a kind of weakness, as I’m clearly lacking the spirit of adventure so many people have, but I can’t ignore what my nervous system so clearly tells me about what feels right.