Kate with Brian 7 and Mary 3 arrived Friday and Helen arrived Sunday. Our house doesn't have enough beds so Kate and her children are sleeping in two lower rooms in Susan's house. Bren is still working ridiculous hours and so moved up to the attic room to be as far away from the noise as possible (though now he tells me that in this space without a door, he can hear everything from the bottom floor up so he's using headphones. )
The evenings are especially celebratory when the wine is uncorked and everyone but me lends a hand in preparing dinner. I do the cleanup in the morning.
***
Two days have passed since I began this post without finishing it. I have unanswered emails... I'm thinking of Stella Bowen, an Australian artist who saw that her art was fueled by interaction with others.
And then there are Rilke's words for his dead friend, another painter Paula Modersohn-Becker:
"For somewhere there is an ancient enmity between our daily life and the great work. Help me, in saying it, to understand it."
Kate and Helen are especially dear to my heart and our days and evenings have been full of conversation, some tears. We are all sorting ourselves out and inadvertently helping each other to see more clearly (or that is the way I feel.)
Kate and her two children left yesterday. Helen will be here another week. I am going to try to fill my new journal with my overflowing thoughts and then come back here hopefully with a clearer idea of what I need to do.
This leaving home has been quite an adventure - not the one we expected. We thought we would feel free, unencumbered from debt but often we feel the opposite. We don't know what to do although our financial people are telling us to invest...
Marlene suggested that I write an article about living our dream. We have had so many people tell us that they admire us, that we are living his or her dream. I/we need more time.
