Stepping Back

My Boy - woodblock print

My Boy

It’s been a while, I know, but there are times when living life takes precedence over writing about it.  Never one for having a single project on the go at any one time, I’ve been busy on several endeavours, in both writing and artwork.

There’s a frantic edge to life at present, in preparation for  a time-slip back to the past.  I’m about to relive getting kids off to school with packed lunches, supervising homework, and all that’s entailed in being a mother and guardian.

My son and his partner are off overseas for a fortnight’s break, and to celebrate a friend’s wedding.  I can’t help a niggle of envy after reading the details of their pending trip, the sights they will see and the adventure they are about to embark upon.  Me, I’ll be experiencing my own adventure, mini or perhaps major, depending on how much my three grandchildren test the boundaries, dealing with the minutiae of a family’s life that is so different from my own.

What to take…  How much can a creative person, one for whom creativity equates to sanity, pack into a medium-sized sedan?  How rusty are my spatial skills?  Once upon a time I was an expert in packing heaps into a small area.  When my own children were young, we used to go camping every year.  Like a travelling circus, we’d head off to unknown places, the car packed to bursting point, the roof rack loaded, and the family dog, a large German Shepherd taking up most of the back seat, squashing my daughter into the corner.  Being in Victoria, every season had to be taken into account for a week’s holiday.  One year at Easter, while camping in Gippsland, we had a ball, dancing in the snow!  Another Easter, we all came home with varying degrees of sunburn.

I was hoping to have the two murals for the Christmas windows completed before the end of the week.  I’m still working on the first.  The second will have to wait for my return.  The current short story, due mid November, refuses to come together in a satisfying denouement.  Printmaking, and a  long list of preparations for my open studio, during next year’s Castlemaine State Festival, will be on hold.  Then, there are the entries for the Summer Spirit exhibition, and others for the Central Goldfields exhibition…

I’ve never understood how folk have the time to become bored.  My son, my boy, turns 30 this week.  How the years have rushed by.  In all that time, and in the years before his birth, I can’t remember a moment of boredom.  Frustration, yes, at not being able to fit in all the things I yearn to accomplish, attempt, and play with.  Never have I found life to be humdrum.  I expect the upcoming adventure of caring for three feisty kids will be anything but dull.

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