Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Where Am I Going and What Am I Doing With This Handbasket?

Dancing Goats coffee in a Kavarna go-cup, some Enya-like music wafting through the air. It's a Kavarna Day! Jessie is off to the zoo with Becky the Wonder Assistant and her nephews, Dan the Carpenter and Dick his Trusty Assistant are working on other projects today, and I am firmly ensconced in my chair ready to do web damage and beat the firing and order schedule and the to-do list into shape (and now listening to Rags to Riches performed by Tony Bennett... it's an eclectic musical morning here at Kavarna).

August is turning out to be the Lost Month. When I look forward to August, in my mind I see a Ward and June Cleaver kind of time where we all relax and enjoy the end of summer and prepare for the start of school. I see me wearing pearls and gingham and sipping a gin and tonic as I watch Jessie and the spaniel romp on the lawn. I can't quite wrap my mind around the image of Dave lounging in crisp slacks, white socks and wingtips and puffing contentedly on a pipe, but almost. Instead I'm off balance, off center, wobbly, anxious and grumbly. I can't find my happy place--or get anything done. There are too many one-off tasks looming.

I think it all has to do with change and routine. I do very well in a crisis--when the world ends, I'm the gal who will get you through it without falling apart. I also do well when life is all settled into a placid routine with no projects threatening, no travel, nothing unpredictable on the horizon. However I completely fall apart in the transition times--coming home from vacation and trying to get the home and hearth into the settled routine state, coming back from a show and shifting gear from presentation and sales to production and shipping. This post-BMAC is worse than usual--I think because we were only home from the vacation in Montana for a week before I took off again to do the show. July was essentially completely atypical time, off-schedule and out of routine.

I loved the vacation--couldn't have enjoyed it more, but I looked forward to getting home to routine (and my own bed) again. Then I had a good show and got my display and materials all stored in Philly for the February show--and I was ready to be back in the studio and in the daily routine again. But I'm home--been here a week--and I can't get my mind inserted into a routine! Okay, it's only been a week. It feels like a month, but it's only been a week. If I can keep it to a week and GET BACK ON THE HORSE IN THE GROOVE, I'll probably be okay.

Time to go look for a horse.

2 comments:

Bill said...

Neigh, madame.

A donkey!

ren said...

i never see me wearing pearls and gingham but i do often see me CHUGGING a gin and tonic.

i feel i am in the same state of...i'd say flux, but there's a word that rhymes that seems so much more descriptive. it took me almost a month to get my booth supplies from comic-con packed away. on the upside, they did give me lots of flat space to pile my other crap.