If the Sign Fits, Display It

A gift from the Faux-Mom-in-Law, who totally understands me....

A few weeks ago there was a mouse in the live trap I'd set, the one I'd baited with Skippy and put out just the night before.

When I checked it the next morning, I wasn't as surprised to find the Skippy gone as I was to discover my target inside it, nursing her newborn jellybeans.

And where another person might see a Free Snake Food Opportunity, I went in the opposite direction. I happily outfitted a maternity terrarium. For the creature I'd originally intended to trap and evict from my home. The one that had now multiplied itself. Greatly.

That should tell you a little something....

'Ferb', scowling at the camera

At any given moment there are creatures here. Some of them even intentional. Over the years I've housed, befriended, raised, and loved everything from the Normal to the Not So Much. There were the usual strays and adoptees, of course, combined with whatever the cats dragged home or my Girlz found under rocks. I nursed stuff back to health and fed motherless things without fur or feathers. I administered formula and cooked special diets and got up every two hours around the clock. I fed caterpillars, fledged butterflies, nurtured tadpoles, released froglings, and misted slugs and stickbugs and toads. I learned to like spiders.

Currently my 'zoo' isn't as densely populated as it has been in the past. It's down the mother housemouse and her brood that I mentioned earlier (thankfully). And 'Phineas' and 'Ferb,' the two tiny turtles my eldest Grandbug found and gave to me to raise over a year ago, have since matured and been returned to the pond from whence they came (sadly).

'Syntche', the stowaway corn snake

I mentioned snakes earlier. I've never thought of myself as a snake person, but I now have two and love them both (who knew they could be so interesting??). And there are stickbugs, as well, and a pair of Betafish, and James's tarantula, 'Nell.' And you already know about Boo, the rescue kitty.

And not so very long ago, it seems, there was a ferret and a cocker spaniel, and a whole herd of ratties, and a starling that whistled and talked. And soon there will be the enormous summertime job of raising milkweed caterpillars into Monarch butterflies.

*Contented sigh*....

As you may have guessed by now, I don't have Martha Stewart standards. Tumbledown's not for the faint of heart. It's a working house, plain and simple. One where a kid can feel comfortable running indoors with an earthworm in his hands and not feel as though he has to take his shoes off first. It's for people like me who aren't easily grossed-out, who aren't afraid of a little dirt (or alot), who anticipate the occasional cat hair in the Cheerios, who are more comfortable with creatures than they are with human company.

'Lily' of the molted feathers

But sometimes human company is important. I'm grateful for James, who shares my esthetics, but once in a while I entertain the notion of having you over for tea. But then I take a moment to REALLY look around me.

There's the furry chair cushion that Boo sleeps on. There's the Beta tank with its current algae bloom. And even though I swear I swept it all up yesterday, spent birdseed already crunches underfoot as I cross the hardwood floor.

There's my collection of Lily's molted feathers displayed in a vase (right next to the jar of cat whiskers and not overly far from the jar of shed snakeskin), too incredibly exotic to throw away....

Jingly cat toys share the dark recesses under my furniture with assorted hair ties, pipe cleaners, and dust bunnies so evolved they've created a union.

Art-related flotsam litters my dining room table and shares space with sciencey stuff. Books claim nearly all other horizontal surfaces. Shelves overflow.....

Passion Ivy runs amok

Surprises lurk in the unlikeliest of places: a cicada specimen, all eyes and veiny cellophane wings; a perfect snail shell, the souvenir of my visit to a nature center; a trio of tiny acorns that a grandbug gifted me; a thumb-sized moth cocoon looking for all the world like a fairy sarcophagus designed by H.R. Geiger.

Plants modeling various forms of the word 'thrive' crowd my front window like jungle cover, and on sunny days the assorted crystals that hang from them cast my living room in rainbows.

Tealight holder? Not anymore....

Things that aren't meant to be (but are now) fairyhouses are everywhere. Little letters to their occupants (written in a preschooler's hand) are tucked between chapter books and spill out alongside recipe cards and Notes to Self and articles I still mean to read and crosswords I still plan to solve. Toys fill in as paperweights, keeping the bills in check until they're paid or the toys are put back into play.

I have yet to sweep or dust or wash dishes or put away laundry. It's after noon already and I've yet to eat breakfast.... But the 'zoo' has been loved and fed, drawings created, pages studied and dog-eared, e-mails answered. I've explored ideas and revisited memories. I've made the coffee. I've cleaned terrariums.....

And you'll recall I'll have to move all those colored pencils, pads of paper, books full of ideas gleaned from magazines and mail order catalogs, all those fill-in-the-creative-blanks if I expect you to sit at my table for tea.

And I do want you to come for tea! I do....

But it occurs to me as I write this post (and agonize over it a little bit) that there's a reason why I discourage visitors. At least adult visitors (kid visitors understand, I think): Few but me could look upon this mess and see it for the heaven that it is.
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A More-Than-Pleasant Surprise

My door only looks like this MOST of the year...

I was typing up some future posts recently when the doorbell rang. It was so unfamiliar to me that I had to think twice about which door to answer, the front or the back....

And there on my step was a friendly face I haven't seen in ages. She'd come to my house at a time when my kitchen was full of caterpillar poop and milkweed stalks, my entryway was full of garage sale items and books to be sorted, and my sink was full of dirty dishes.

And -- without even a split second of 'can I do this?' -- I let her in. After much hugging and 'holy cow!'-ing, of course. And I cleared a chair off for her and swiped an arm across all the flotsam littering my table, and we had coffee together and we laughed and cried and caught up with each others' lives. And she actually said, "I love your house; there are so many interesting things in it!" And she meant it, too. And I tried hard not to go into apology mode and make excuses for what I saw as my crazy-ass mess.... 

(And honestly? A little part of me inside was screaming, "She said my house is interesting! Where's Mom when we need her to HEAR this!?")

Laurel (that's my friend's name) admitted that she follows this blog, bless her!, and remembers a post in which I mentioned expecting a visit from someone and spending two weeks prior to it staging my house in a way that made me feel better about it. That was NOT something that she wanted me to do, so she took a chance and simply dropped in on me instead.

'Drop ins' are one of my big fears. The prospect of them keeps me awake at night and gives me bad dreams. But surprisingly, they've only ever gone horribly awry in my head. Anyone else seems to be fine with my chaos, and our visits have gone so well that I've wondered afterwards why I'm so afraid of get-togethers....

This is the issue you want to look for!

Some of Laurel's amazing work

My friend Laurel is a passionate jewelry creator. She sells regularly at local art shows and has a wonderful Etsy store called StoneWing Designs (see it here). When our coffee was finished, we trekked together into the Village to the local bead shop (Garden of Beads) where she pored over hanks of semi-precious stones. I watched as Laurel lovingly fingered strands of gorgeous jasper and agate and draped unique color combinations across her palms, and as we talked she shared with me that her work is about to be featured in the next issue of Easy Wire. My friend and her wonderful work -- published in a magazine! She's gonna be famous, I just know it. And I'm crazy excited for her and am confident that this is the next step that will open up interesting doors for her and her unique creations.

As our impromptu get-together drew to a close, we made a date to do it all again soon. HERE. At Tumbledown. I want to see what she's made with the wonderful pieces she purchased and she wants to see where I create. I'm looking forward to it like a little kid! And just recalling how I made it through a 'drop in'  and am already excited about the future visit has me a little shell-shocked.

I've been surprising myself a lot lately.... :)
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My First Tattoo, Perhaps?

I learned something big recently. BIG big. Big like an a-ha moment, only all in caps and exclamation marks -- A-HA!!! -- with clouds parting and sunbeams piercing down like swords. Oh, and choirs singing, too. And pointing their fingers.

Wait a minute... At me?

But in hindsight I see now that I deserved it.

What happened was this. My friend Sue and I went to a theatre performance one evening together recently, and I stayed in her guest room afterwards and tagged along to work with her the next day where I stayed until James could fetch me. (Why I did this is because I'm currently without wheels, but that's beside the point.) Sue is a librarian. And we all know about me and books. Being 'forced' to spend an entire day in a quiet building surrounded by floor-to-ceiling shelves full of awesomey awesomeness is about as close to heaven as I can imagine....

During the course of the day, Sue walked some of her co-workers back to meet me. One was her best bud at the library, an artist named Maren who is married and raising a family. Since Maren seemed to have the time, I invited her to sit at my table, and the two of us talked about art. I learned that she attended art school and that her mother is an accomplished artist. And I learned that although Maren knew of her mother's talent, she hadn't seen much of her work until recent years. Impressed with what she saw, she asked her 80+-year-old mother (who apparently has never worked outside the home during her marriage) why she hadn't continued with her art after Maren and her siblings were all grown and gone. And her mom's response was, "But who would've cared for the house?"

Seriously?

This was choir-and-cloud-parting Moment #1.

Apparently I was a little shaken by her mom's statement and wasn't entirely focused when Maren continued talking, because I recall her asking me questions and me answering them apologetically. As in Maren asking, "So you do art full-time?" And me answering, "Haha, yeah! But I wouldn't recommend it unless you wanted to be really, really poor." Maren said, "When I get home from work at night, the last thing I want to do is try to get in the Creative Zone. You're so lucky to have your entire day for art."

....!?

You know that THX surround-sound bit at the movie theatre where a crazy loud musical chord narrows itself down to its essence and focuses like an ice-pick of tone right in your sternum? Only it's painful in a sweet and harmonic way, like you're not sure you can bear it but if it's gonna kill you then what a way to go?

Behold choir-and-cloud-parting Moment #2.

I don't even think I said anything more to Maren after that. If I did, I was just going through the verbal motions. Because it'd occurred to me moments earlier that Maren and others like her -- creative folks all wishing years of their lives away to that day in the future when they can do what they dream -- all trusted me to be using my time wisely. And in my head I'd already fast-forwarded to the end of my own personal movie to the scene where my daughters ask me why I didn't do much with my art after they both grew up and left home, and my old self answering with something totally banal like, "But who would've cared for the house?"

I was Maren once. I knew women who spent their days making art. I hated them and worshipped them and would've sold my soul to be them, and in my head I imagined them happily living my dream and reveling in it, wringing their hands in creative glee behind my back while I paid my workin' girl dues. Those chicks owed it to me to be making the most of their amazing good fortune! And if I'd even suspected that they were spending their days folding clothes or polishing silver, I'd have called the Time Police and had all those blessed creative hours revoked.

So, wow.

In the space of just a few weeks I've met two strangers who've both looked me square in the eye and challenged me to not disappoint them. I'm sure that wasn't really what they were doing, but that's definitely the message I got. And now I think of that message often.

"Disappoint none. For in great freedom lies great responsibility."

Yikes. And I'm serious when I say that those words are something I should write on my bathroom mirror in chapstick, or spend a year creating a needlepoint sampler out of, or tattoo backwards onto my forehead just so I have to read them every day, especially when a dust bunny taunts me and makes me go hunting for my broom.

Because it's not about the housework or the fill-in-the-blank. And it's not about how poor I am, but how LUCKY I am. And it's all about the art and about the complete freedom I have to pursue it. And it's about remembering my young self who spent countless hours wishing the years away until she could be where I am now.... So you might say there's a third person begging me not to disappoint her.

And she's the most important one.
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Welcome to Tumbledown

Home is where the art is... :)

The first thing I should probably do is welcome you to my home, and here it is. Or at least here is its front door. I named the place 'Tumbledown' years ago when it was even less scruffy than it is today. (And this is not an up-to-date photo, so you can imagine what state it's in now!) Picking my house out of the neighborhood lineup is a piece of baklava; in my opinion, it's the only one with any character.

I've lived at Tumbledown for over twenty years. It's the residence I've been connected to the longest in my lifetime. I have some mixed feelings about it, mostly because several big life changes of both the happy and sad varieties occurred here over the years. And now that my daughters are grown and married and making lives of their own, I'm torn about staying in the house they grew up in....

James lives here with me now. He doesn't have the history with Tumbledown that I have. Occasionally I ponder what it'd be like to pull up stakes and find a whole new place that is ours alone. But about the time I begin to think seriously about it I open the door to the upstairs closet and see the pencil marks on the wall there of just how tall my girls were at different stages of their lives and I know then that it'd be impossible for me to leave. Which means that Tumbledown will be my forever home. Or at least the last one before the Nursing Home.

I'm not a housekeeper. The word is not even in my vocabulary. My mom, however, is an AMAZING housekeeper, and a day doesn't go by that I don't see a cobweb or a cat hair out of the corner of my eye and hear her voice in my head admonishing me to put down my pencil and sketchbook and do something important with my time. Sometimes I can tell myself that keeping house is her art and she's a master at it. And sometimes I can say with conviction that art IS important, more important than a clean house. But most of the time that voice in my head just saws away at me and I begin moving in circles: draw a bit, see something I should be doing, do it poorly, feel guilty, go back to the sketchbook, draw some more, lather, rinse, repeat....

James and I love stuff (especially books) and we love to collect it, and the odder the stuff the better. As a result, Tumbledown is a bit like Disneyland in that you can't see it all in one day. When my mom visits now, she can hardly speak her eyes are so busy! But her reaction over the years has made me self-conscious of my nest and more than a little hesitant to share it with others. I love it here, but I know it's not for everyone....

So this shabby front door is all you're gonna get for now. And I'll try to introduce you to the rest of the Tumbledown Experience in little bits, 'k?

Trust me. 'Little bits' is best. :)
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