I Live In Gratitude

So many people these days reply, “I live in gratitude.”  A noble place to live, in my opinion, but my question has always been, “Where in gratitude?  Gratitude covers a lot of territory.”

For me, these days I live deep into creativity, somedays teetering on the edge of a cliff.  Take today.  I worked on twelve different “Wishing Wands.”  Some of them are still dirty, rough sticks I paired with others, combining roots and branches, or bark and roots.  Some of them needed another coat of oil.  Others received their crystal.  Those sticks, combined and oiled, wait for a few days, while I determine whether they will have a quartz crystal or a piece of petrified wood.  One spoke up today, and got a sheen of copper paint and a copper nugget.

In addition to the wands I found a trailer full of chunks of old barn wood parked right outside the high school.  Only yesterday I found a single piece of barn wood deep in my stash and lined up some largish chunks of mulch on it.  Beautiful!  Now I have a pile of pieces of barn wood and a bag of mulch chips.  My to-do list—discover how to maintain the disintegrating quality of the pieces, but sanitize them enough they can proudly hang on a wall.

And I picked up a bag of straighter sticks.  I want to combine them with my twisty palo verde sticks into the desert equivalent of driftwood hangings.  I bought a drill for that project yesterday.

I am going to be featured artist in the gallery in Oak Creek in January.  I will get an additional wall space to use.  I need ways to hang my work on that wall.  These three projects will  do that.

But my creativity does not stop with my woodpile.  I also write.  I have been mulling over topics to put up onto this blog.  And cooking.  Monday night I worked with a friend to create an amazing lasagna.  No bottle of ragu sauce for this creation.  We made nine different layers for a non-vegetable vegetarian pan.  No to zucchini, or spinach.  Mushrooms, sauteed and mashed garlic and onions, hard boiled eggs,n three cheeses, olives, noodles, and a layer o minced fresh herbs.Next night I made preview latkes.

Living in this creativity has its problems.  In a constant state of natural high, I mut work to keep myself grounded.  My memory for where I put things is terrible.  My friends and U joke about the gremlins.  Everything disappears.  “Go back to the last place where….” is useless.  I have been so many different places there seems no way to retrace all my steps.  Perhaps that is why I balance so many projects.  Can’t find my flue, but that stick would look good attached to this one.  I begin to clean one of these, but as I reach for my dremel I find the glue.

Organization escapes me.  There are days when cyclones follow me everywhere.  Fortunately I hit the moment where I click and I can move from hanging my clothes to organizing my shirts and swing by the kitchen to put away dishes.

Living in creativity, within gratitude is never boring.  My friends laugh with me frequently at the antics which result.  But as long as I can maintain my sense o humor, and not step outside the realm of gratitude, I certainly can live!

Where do you live?