Starting again

Today I remembered that I had a blog. I tried to find it in the great wide internet, but I couldn't find it. I remembered the name of it, but somehow it still wouldn't turn up. I started a new one, and gave it the same name.

Tonight I am puppy-sitting, even though she's not really a puppy anymore. I am alone in the house for the first time in what feels like months, and probably is. I played guitar for the first time in months, and I sang out loud- so uncertain about how it will sound but just trying to hit some notes and try to remember how I sing. I love singing. I miss singing with my own boring strumming accompaniment as loud as I feel like. I wish that I could do it when people were home, but I can't seem to. Only when I am alone (or alone with only a puppy, who doesn't seem to mind).

This week I have adopted a new outlook and have adjusted my attitude. I came home from a wonderful visit of bigger towns and long lost friends, and I felt so re-energized, as if I'd been only half-working lately.

I baked some whole wheat bread, putting my lazy hands to use. I made lentil soup, and baked banana muffins, and listened to music in the kitchen. I tore off an old painting from a poorly constructed stretcher. The painting was on primed bedsheet, and was a red-toned collage image of Gord Downie singing into a microphone. I used to feel nostalgic about things like that and feel the want to hang on to them, but ripping it off felt good. I loved the way the stiff sheet crackled as it fell on the floor, released after seven years of stretchedness. It was a pretty bad painting, I can see that now.

Today I cut myself a piece of canvas from that $400 roll that has been hiding in the closet. I gave myself a blister from that big old staple gun, but I got it pulled across the wood and then primed it, and it is ready to be painted on. I feel this excitement that I haven't felt in a long time- about starting something new. I don't even know what I'm going to paint, but I have been thinking about the colours I am going to use. I wonder now why I have put this off for so long.

It is a strange feeling, to be somewhere where you didn't expect to find yourself. I have spent months now contemplating this misalignment, and beating myself up for not meeting my own expectation. Now I feel better. I don't know what really changed- maybe the sun just started shining a little more brightly in the past few days. A combination I guess, of all these amazing energies flowing back into me, and I am so thankful to be feeling so rosy again.

So yeah, starting again, as in, ending a stand still. It feels good to be moving.