the peaceful peacock

a soule­mama inspired post.

…at the loom…

Thanks for hang­ing in there while I’m get­ting a new round of techie stuff fig­ured out.  Cre­at­ing and design­ing a cus­tom web­site is no easy feat, espe­cially for some­one who didn’t even know how to use a dig­i­tal cam­era three years ago.  Iron­i­cally, the sim­plis­tic lay­out and easy-to-maneuver site is one of the most chal­leng­ing to put together.

Though it looks pretty basic on the out­side, I’ve been busy, busy installing cus­tom tools and work­ing with code in order to make this web­site beau­ti­ful, easy to nav­i­gate, and most impor­tantly (to me) effi­cient and quick to work with.  I’ve been con­cen­trat­ing the bulk of my cre­ative time on this effort for the last 6 months and watch­ing it finally come into fruition is kind of mind bog­gling, to tell you the truth.

It’s been a joy to share this entire jour­ney with you and I can­not express how much I appre­ci­ate those of you who have stuck through it and watched it grow.  Just wait.  It’s going to get bet­ter and bet­ter.  Every day.

In a way that you can actu­ally see.

So while we’re in wrap-it-up mode, I’ll be re-posting a few of my most pop­u­lar and most help­ful posts over the next cou­ple of weeks.  These are posts that were imported from the old site and I’d like to edit them a bit, renew my link exchanges, and boost my SEO rank­ing with them, so thanks for sit­ting through the re-runs.  If you haven’t had the chance to read them already, then all the better!

Back to the geekery.…

I sup­pose a few may be won­der­ing how my chal­lenge of the utmost kind is hold­ing up.

It’s chal­leng­ing.  And good.  And I’m hav­ing fun with it so far.

One of the ele­ments that I like about par­tic­i­pat­ing in some­thing like this is that it becomes sur­pris­ingly per­sonal.  I’m look­ing inside and out to dis­cover exactly what it is that makes me tick in regards to per­sonal style.  I’ve been brows­ing fash­ion sites, flickr groups, and inspi­ra­tional blogs to open up new per­spec­tives, and I’ve been caught up in the feel­ings of lack and out-of-placeness that come from check­ing in with fash­ion sites, flickr groups, and inspi­ra­tional blogs.

And I’ve come home to the foun­da­tions.  The core.  Ele­ments that cre­ate the essence of me.

When I was about 20 years old, I remem­ber stum­bling onto a bumper sticker that sim­ply said, “I Am”.  I knew this was valu­able infor­ma­tion, some­thing to be tucked away and stored and pon­dered over, but I didn’t really get it at the time.  I think I’m start­ing to get it.  The les­son is one that only comes from watch­ing the days flow in and out, stealth­ily tak­ing time by the hand and pass­ing it under my feet.

That’s a deep and fancy way of telling you how wise I’ve become in my thirties.

What I do know is that every­thing changes.  But I am always me.  I am always here.  I am always doing what I do.  Here changes, what I do sways with the breeze, the pieces of the puz­zle fit in dif­fer­ent pat­terns from days to weeks to years, but I still value the same foun­da­tions that I have held close to my heart my whole life.  It’s good to know that now that I’m pass­ing those lit­tle parts and pieces of myself on to other human beings, and I’ve done my best to pol­ish up the tar­nished spots and to repair the bits that came home damaged.

No mat­ter what, I always Am.

In the moment.  On my way to some­thing.  In love.  Enjoy­ing myself.  Won­der­ing.  Think­ing about some­thing else.  Happy.  Con­tent.  Ful­filled.  Chal­lenged.  Hope­ful.  Bak­ing.  Sewing.  Learn­ing.  Nurturing.

Kind.  Grace­ful.  Blessed.

Even when I’m irri­tated and frus­trated and impa­tient and tired and crabby and in the crap­pi­est of moods.  I Am.

And I must admit, it’s kind of fun to find ways that express that in some­thing as imper­ma­nent and fleet­ing as cloth­ing.  It’s a challenge–and not my usual kind of chal­lenge.  A chal­lenge of the utmost kind, indeed.

So I begin with some­thing easy and familiar.

Skirts.

And an old skill that I haven’t vis­ited since those days of 20.  With this first piece, I honor all that I Am.  I also honor all that I Was.  Because while 20 was a pretty good year, it’s a part of me that still hurts some­times even though I wish it didn’t.

In grat­i­tude, I make this skirt for a young lady I knew a long time ago.  She was a whiz at embroi­dery.  And she was rather fond of faeries.

This win­ter I have acquired a new friend.

Her name is Jas­mine Green.

She lives in a teapot, a cup, a jar, some­times an unbleached filter.

But she’s always nearby.

She brings her friend Honey along too.

We have some good times.

She offers me a han­dle on the dif­fi­cult moments.

I often think of her in the mid­dle of the night and can’t wait to see her in the morning.

It must be love.

I take it back about not mak­ing any New Year’s Res­o­lu­tions.  The other day we were out play­ing under the blue­berry sky again and I stum­bled across a solu­tion that solved a lot more than my query about how to make the moun­tains look big­ger with my sim­ple camera…

Aim higher.

The win­ter lasts a long time in Montana.

A looooooong time.

We are cur­rently in the throngs of Win­ter 2, the post-Christmas lull before the real deep-freeze mad­ness sets in.

This year we have been graced with plenty of still, blue skies and pre­co­cious black birds to waken our dreary eyes.  A refresh­ing prepa­ra­tion for our next season.

Still Win­ter.

Hang in there, say the black birds. Make new plans for gar­dens and sum­mer­time frills, fix the parts of your insides that ask for atten­tion still.

Thank you for your mes­sage, Brother Birds.  You hang in there too.