I looked around my cramped little sleeping space, my nest. It was another "art supply annex" before it forcefully became a bedroom when friends put a bed in there when I was hospitalized last year. Now when I sleep I'm surrounded by a plethora of old books, empty canvases, shelves full of supplies, and a million glass art history slides. I have just enough room to turn around the doggie stairs to the bed. It is cozy! Most important, it is next to the bathroom. It was my first bedroom in this house when I was a baby until I was about 7, when my sister convinced me to switch with her and go live upstairs with our other sister. Her reasoning was that the cat had kittens under my bed (go figure #1) and their meowing would keep me up at night (go figure #2.) Seeing as I hold dear and precious memories of reaching down through the space between my bed and wall and pulling up a tiny kitten for cuddles on my chest, I do not think I perceived it as an issue. I think there were lots of other discussions and even tantrums involved to make this residence change, but I digress.
So, from my cluttered little cradle, my eyes popped open about 1 am. And looked around. And made my brain seriously consider my own mortality. What is going to happen to all my stuff? What poor bugger is going to have to empty it all out if I die suddenly? Will a junk truck get backed up and the house shaken into it, sending wonderful treasures to a trashy death with me? Hmmm. Then the thought, I probably have only ten years or so to live now if estimates are correct. Even if I live twenty, I'll never get to use all the cool stuff I have in here. Not to mention all of the beads! Then the thought...and I will never be able to make all the art I have in my mind. Ever. And that thought frustrated me more than anything else!
So many ideas come to me every day for quilts, sculptures, drawings, collages, etc. All. Day. Long. My crap body traps the ideas in my head and I crawl slowly forward in my artwork, taking so long to complete each piece it becomes almost trivial that I make anything at all. So, only the best ideas make it out of the brain, then? Not always. You need to play and make messes to get at the good stuff. Then I ask, what does it matter, anyway, if I don't make what I hope to make? I will not be here to feel bad about it, anyway, and I try to sleep. Again.
Except at this point, my sweet puppies have joined me in my insomnia and are coming to peer into my eyes with seriously questioning looks. "Is it time to get up yet? Is it play time? Are you ok?" and then when I speak to them, my favorite look -- the "Can we cuddle up and go to sleep again?" one. Tessa plants a few surprise kisses on my cheek and sniggles her tiny warm self back to her sleeping place in my right armpit, and Teddie returns to the end of the bed, stretching out so that one paw touches her sister. Ellie has stayed sleeping, oblivious to the Running of the Mind. Then I do the math and hope that statistics aren't true, as these girls could end up outliving me. Run the new brain tape!
Isn't there a book about Scandinavian Death Cleaning? How depressing. Remind me never to read it! Especially before bed. Cheers!