such a surrealistic year
Along with possibly millions of other people around the world, I feel like I am living in a parallel universe. My day job is as a small business owner, I am a self-employed esthetician, with a small but thriving practice in a small rural town in far Northern California. When the shutdown first happened, for the first 6 weeks, it was panic/chaos mode. trying to navigate the EDD, the SBA funding info (which was changing every 3 days) and basically just trying to not completely freak out. By May I had those things lined up and was able to fully exhale without anxiety for the first time in almost 2 months.
May was a great month for me. I spent hours and hours in the studio, sometimes 12 hours a day. I was creating like crazy. I was selling little bits and bobs and had a couple commissions. Then June arrived, along with all the talk about going back to work, and the anxiety set in again. I went back to work June 30th, working part time up as the county went thru the shutdown/reopen/shutdown cycle until I called it quits Sept 1st. by then, clients were cancelling because of exposure to someone who tested positive and it was just too much, dealing with all the uncertainty.
I thought, ok, great, I’ll work glass…but yo! the creative juices have been non-existent. to be fair, we had a late start to fire season and then it all caught on fire literally the same day (statewide dry lightning strikes. 11,000 of them. really) resulting in several groups of people whom I love, having to evacuate. and the smoke. ugh. this is my front yard one day as smoke from a fire 30 miles south moved north. this was 9am, and by 11 it was dark like 7pm at night.
I’m also selling my home and preparing for a huge move. Doing improvements like painting and flooring and installing deck railing. My creativity has taken a backseat. I’ll feel the need to create and I’ll head out to the studio and then, like a rapidly leaking tire phsssssssssssssst my oomph leaks away.
I had all that time to post here and write, but I didn’t. I’m going to make an effort over these next few weeks to get some fresh content up on this website. Thanks for checkin in, thanks for sticking with it.
love affair with stained glass 