Home Sweet Home

I sometimes lose track of how many activities I like to do. Reading. Writing. Painting. Running. Playing video games. Taking long walks in the forest. But over the last few weeks I’ve remembered just how important they all are to me. They make me feel truly alive and happy and healthy—which helps me to feel more creative and imaginative.

We’ve just finished moving into our new house (yay!) and are in the process of getting settled. After so many months of being in transition—packing up one house, living with my very kind sister and her family for two months until finally coming here—I can honestly say that I feel like the luckiest person in the world. 

The process of building a house is complicated. There are these milestones, things that have to be done so the house can be built, and while they look straightforward on paper—none of them speak to the emotional and spiritual toll that building a new house can have. We've been working through this process for the last year. In many ways it’s just like writing a book—so much harder and involved than it looks like from the outside. It’s such a relief to be through the majority of it. Now I feel like it's time to replenish my spirit, fuel my imagination and create ALL THE THINGS.

I started my attempt to create ALL THE THINGS by playing my piano (probably because it had been put away in storage for two and half months), and I was blown away by how happy it made me. Like real and true joy happy. It was like a piece of me had been missing and was slowly being restored with every note I played. I also missed running. The track I like to run at is just down the road and as I write this, I’ve just returned from my first proper run in months. Years actually, since I wasn’t running a whole lot over the times that I was pregnant. I also went for a walk and played a video game with my niece. All of it was amazing. Awesome. Fantastic.

I suppose my point is, I am just very happy and grateful to be back to having time and making things again (including blog posts!). Last week felt like my first substantial opportunity to get back into the swing of things with my writing and it felt good to settle into a rhythm, working on a new book first thing in the morning, editing another book just after that and spending my afternoons getting back on track with all the projects I had to put aside. Plus it's just nice to be here at long last, creating our new space, here in the forest, surrounded by trees.

Right before I moved, I wrote this blog about how happy I could be with so little. And that’s still true. Moving taught me that more than ever, that home is where my family is, my husband and my children. But having space to actually create all the things I most dreamed of—movies, poems, paintings, comics—I am so very excited about that. Especially because I hope for many of them to be in the language, as another way of helping me to learn.

I’ll be sharing a lot more of those creations here and other places in the coming months. It’s going to be awesome. It already feels that way!

Happy creating,

S.